| | Rufus Wainwright CD Rufus Wainwright Discography of CDs
 (3 Customer Reviews)
In 1998, the music industry was inundated with recordings by the offspring of '60s and '70s icons. Chris Stills, Sean Lennon, Emma Townshend; nepotism ran unchecked, with varying degrees of aesthetic and commercial success. Rufus Wainwright, scion of acerbic singer/songwriter Loudon Wainwright and Canadian songstress Kate McGarrigle, may share a nasal vocal drawl with his father, but the songs here are closer to Brian Wilson, Randy Newman or Harry Nilsson than Loudon or Kate. The Newman/Wilson connection is underlined by the skewed, neo-Baroque string arrangements and co-production of Van Dyke Parks, whose sensibility seems to mesh perfectly with Wainwright's piano-based tunes.
Wainwright's debut finds him exercising considerable harmonic and compositional chops in the service of a vision that's closer in spirit to some of the eccentric, decidedly non-rock singer-songwriters of the early '70s (like those mentioned above) than anything current. His gift for the extended melodic line serves him well here. Lyrically, Wainwright is able to combine unsentimental passion with unpretentious imagery; no mean feat, even for veteran troubadours. This recording, substantive and rewarding as it is, portends a bright future.
Personnel: Rufus Wainwright (acoustic guitar, piano); Benmont Tench (keyboards); Jim Keltner (drums).
Audio Mixers: Pierre Marchand; Bob Clearmountain.
Recording information: Med; Ocean Way Three & Seven; Sunset sound; Sunset sound Factory; Wildsky Studio, Morin Heights, Quebec, Canada.
Personnel: Rufus Wainwright (vocals, acoustic guitar, piano, tack piano, half-speed piano, S-6, chamberlin, castanets); Jon Brion (acoustic, baritone acoustic & electric guitars, mandolin, accordion, tack piano, vibraphone, marimba, bass, S-6, optigan, toms, percussion, timpani, crotales, celeste, temple blocks, bells, background vocals); Yves Desrosier (guitar, slide bass); Marty Grebb (alto saxophone); Benmont Tench (piano, keyboards, Hammond organ); Pierre Marchand (keyboards, bass); Glen Hollman (upright & mandolin basses); Ash Sood (drums, persussion); Jim Keltner (drums); Martha Wainwright (background vocals).
Producers: Jon Brion, Pierre Marchand, Van Dyke Parks.
Award Winner
Rolling Stone (6/11/98, p.122) - 3.5 Stars (out of 5) - "...his incandescent pop songwriting, piano-based melodies and cool, brooding tenor combine on compositions that range from droll lounge ballads...to orchestral noir....if the songs...remind you of old pop standards, it's because they're so damn classy."
Spin (1/99, p.91) - Ranked #17 on Spin's list of "Top 20 Albums of '98."
Spin (7/98, pp.122-124) - 7 (out of 10) - "...his talent is huge, and so original that trendmongers who make it their business to announce a pop revolution every fiscal quarter are unlikely to understand it....The nice thing about Wainwright's lyricism is that he's definitely no ironist. On the contrary, he's in love with beauty..."
Entertainment Weekly (5/22/98, pp.68-69) - "...RUFUS WAINWRIGHT often feels like the soundtrack to a never-released film from the '30s...the album is utterly charming, and Wainwright has managed to avoid the hokey, wax-museum tendencies of a Michael Feinstein. Roll over, Chuck Berry, and tell Irving Berlin the news." - Rating: A-
CMJ (1/11/99, p.3) - "...flair for the dramatic makes the young singer's dubut a thrilling, iconoclastic album - few recent performers have crafted orchestrated pop this deep, this dramatic or this dazzling..." Rufus Wainwright Music Review Purchase Rufus Wainwright CD To buy, Click on price to add to cart | Lucinda Williams Car Wheels On A Gravel Road CD (1998)
Rufus Wainwright album
 $11.95    
All tracks have been digitally mastered using HDCD technology.
CAR WHEELS ON A GRAVEL ROAD won the 1999 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. "Can't Let Go" was nominated for the 1999 Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.
Williams's fans waited a long six years for this album, as Lucinda went through music business hassles and a revolving door of producers. The reward for their patience is an album full of rootsy, heartfelt observations that alternately rock and mourn. CAR WHEELS is full of songs about loss and longing, like "Metal Firecracker," "Drunken Angel" and "I Lost It," but even when she's bemoaning her own lack of happiness on the bluesy "Joy," she lets loose with so much passion that it seems inevitable she'll find her emotional center again.
Produced largely by Steve Earle, CAR WHEELS is immersed in that late-'90s ...
| | Elliott Smith Xo CD (1998)
Rufus Wainwright CD music
$11.99 
The Cinderella-esque climb from lo-fi indie cult artist to Grammy nominee/major label darling must have been a perilous one for Smith, who makes the leap to the big time here after three well-regarded albums on small labels. He's lost none of his bite, though. The production values on XO may be slightly higher, but Smith's vision remains undiluted.
The production, centered around acoustic guitar augmented by keyboards and lush vocal harmonies, recalls pop icons like the Beach Boys (especially on the closing acapella cut), Beatles and Big Star, but this is no sunny Cali-pop album. Leavening the instrumental brightness are Smith's Nick Drake-ish whisper and his thoroughly downcast lyrics, which cast him squarely in the Mark Eitzel/Smog camp of unrelenting self-effacement ...
| | Rufus Wainwright Poses CD (2001) Import
Rufus Wainwright music CDs
$12.79 
When Rufus Wainwright first appeared on the music scene, the public was startled not only by the fact that this son of legendary musicians (a McGarrigle Sister and papa Loudon) was a true artist in his own right, but that he had a sound that set him so far apart from any of his contemporaries. Wainwright's second record POSES doesn't need to blaze any new stylistic ground since he's already so distinctively operating in his own furrow. The album pretty much picks up where its predecessor left off, offering elaborate, piano-based melodies that owe more to Tin Pan Alley (or at their most modern, Brian Wilson) than to any contemporaneous trend. The arrangements are rich with unusual harmonies, which serve Wainwright's unusual voice and lyrics extremely well. His high, keening tenor lets loose a torrent of self-effacing lyrics ...
| | Rufus Wainwright Want One CD (2003) Enhanced CD
Rufus Wainwright songs
$10.45
After his sophomore album, POSES, sailed critically but failed commercially, Rufus Wainwright fell into a pattern of hard drug abuse. Luckily, the support of friends and family landed him in rehab. Emerging newly sober and clearheaded, Rufus threw himself into his work. The result is WANT ONE, an unabashedly honest, musically sprawling record that finds the vocalist reaching a new level of maturity.
It becomes quite clear during the borderline satirical album opener "Oh, What a World" (which goes so far as to reference Ravel's "Bolero") that Wainwright has met his musical match in producer Marius de Vries (U2, Bjork). Rather than reigning in the singer/multi-instrumentalist's vision, de Vries understands that the sincerity and conviction in his voice keeps even the most over-the-top ...
| | Rufus Wainwright Want Two CD (2004) With DVD
Rufus Wainwright album
$16.59
WANT TWO (the sequel to 2003's more subdued WANT ONE) opens with a haunting take on the Agnes Dei (here titled "Agnus Dei"), replete with guitar noise, orchestral accompaniment, and Cimbalom drone. This traditional Catholic prayer, a plea for mercy and peace, has never sounded so desperate, so dark, and yet, by track's end, so sweet and redemptive. The rest of the album expands on this lyrical theme of pleading and, melodically, echoes medieval church music, even as it flirts with a variety of rhythmic styles. "The Art Teacher" recalls a vintage Philip Glass piece, with its mesmerizing, repetitive block chords topped by a mournful, windblown melody, while the very pretty and hilarious "Gay Messiah" could be a Billy Joel Top 40 hit in a parallel universe. Though the conflict between desire and peace never quite resolves here, WANT TWO captures the beauty and excitement of the struggle, as told by an artist at the top of his ...
| | Gothic Rock, Vol. 1 CD (1993)
Rufus Wainwright CD music
$9.49
"Goth" was a much maligned '80s genre, often deserved thanks to overtly gloomy pretentiousness, but just as often artistic, dark, bracing music. In addition to those outfits that still keep it going, this double CD is smart enough to include some of the long forgotten, ...
| | DOS Gilbertos Rosalito CD (2004)
$9.55 | | Disney's Princess Favorites CD (2002)
Rufus Wainwright music CDs
$10.19
| | Pixies Doolittle CD (2008) (Import) Japan
Rufus Wainwright songs
$9.74 
| | Low End View We Can Hear You CD (2009)
Rufus Wainwright album
$9.35
Like the gristle you couldn't chew, the scum you couldn't get off your tub. You try and shut us down but we keep comin' back. I know, I know. We never learn our lesson, we never learn from our mistakes. We continue to burst through hostile grounds. Shoot, dig a ditch, swim for your lives. We're storming your beach, bitch. Having blitzed you with records, EP's, t-shirts, stickers; ...
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