Rufus Wainwright - "Poses"

(Dreamworks 2001)

by Martin Ryan

When your mother and father are both semi-famous musicians and you grow up in regular contact with the leading lights in popular music of the day it would be easy to assume that the path to creativity and fame should be easy. Rufus Wainwright found that path easy. Sure it helped that his father is Loudon Wainwright III and his mother is Kate McGarrigle but that would only have "oiled the wheels" if he didn't have the talent he has. He debuted with his 1998 album "Rufus Wainwright" which received positive reviews and earned him the Best New Artist title for that year from Rolling Stone magazine. He has since gone on to record four more albums, the most recent being 2007's "Release The Stars", in my opinion his weakest work but ironically, the album that has been most instrumental in raising his profile. In the six years since "Poses" regular Rufus-watchers will have looked on with concern as his apparent addiction to tragic love affairs with men who were unsuitable for whatever reason led him on a merry dance through the gay clubs of several continents and a dalliance with crystal-meth which, he claims, caused him to go blind for a week. Having consulted with Elton John (how nice to have friends in high places) he checked into rehab and now claims to be clean. Having read that you'd be tempted to dismiss Rufus as just another spoiled son of rich showbiz parents. You'd be missing out if you did however because he is, notwithstanding the above, one of the most talented singers and songwriters around today, and is recognised so by his contemporaries. No less a talent than Burt Bacharach, a classic songwriter from an earlier era, collaborated with Rufus on the beautiful "Go Ask Shakespeare" on the former's 2005 album "At This Time". His gift for composition encompasses genres as diverse as folk(ish), rock, baroque and Broadway musical, all of which are covered in his own inimitable style on this album. His voice, an immediately striking if mannered instrument on his debut, has by now matured and a lot of the more annoying mannerisms have been ironed out. Lyrically, Rufus has always been clever, witty and droll, veering between hilarious and heartbreaking with a fairly constant theme of romance, usually of the tragic nature, permeating most of his work.
"Cigarettes And Chocolate Milk", the opener, is straight out of Tin Pan Alley with its piano led 4/4 beat introducing us to the world of the protagonist where "Playing with prodigal sons/ Takes a lot of sentimental Valiums" and "You've got to keep in the game/ Maintaining mystique while facing forward" before arriving at a string driven finale where Rufus coyly admits that he's "Just a little bit heiress/ A little bit Irish/ A little bit Tower of Pisa whenever I see you/ So please be kind if I'm a mess". Ok then. This guy is obviously prepared to lay himself open to ridicule and could easily be accused of being a self-absorbed fop but this is so damn good and, you ask yourself, who else is doing this kind of thing? More and better follows. The title track was then and remains his best song in my opinion. It opens with a sultry and sumptuous piano figure before Rufus enters with "The yellow walls are lined with portraits/ And I've got my new red fetching leather jacket on/ All these poses such beautiful poses/ Makes any boy feel like picking up roses". It's not all Wildean aestheticism however as we're told "I did go from wanting someone/ Now I'm drunk and wearing flip-flops on 5^th Avenue/ Once you've fallen from classical virtue/ Won't have a soul for to wake up and hold you". His singing here reaches new heights, probably reflecting his confidence in the quality of the song. He can't take himself too seriously though and ends the song with the throwaway " All these poses now no longer boyish/ Made me a man/ Oh but who cares what that is". Typically, he couldn't resist a little theatrical pathos with the inclusion of "now no longer boyish". "California", released as a failed single, is a straight ahead catchy pop-rock song. What lifts it above the norm are the lyrics which juxtapose the jaunty melody with the droll "California, California/ You're such a wonder that I think I'll stay in bed" and the pay-off line "Life is the longest death in California". Hardly hit single material! "Tower Of Learning" starts slowly, again with a memorable melody and builds in the second verse as another tale of a rejected lover unfolds when the target of the singer's passion "Smashed in with your eyes what I'm looking for/ One blink and then my heart wasn't there no more". Why are the songs about unrequited love the best? This guy seems to have the answer. "Grey Gardens" is opaque and deliberately so with Rufus seeming to be playing with the maxim that a little mystery is a good thing. The title seems to refer to Grey Gardens, the mansion in which the aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis lived in squalor, while references to Tadzio point us in the direction of the movie "Death In Venice". Whatever it's about it works as a song, the melody and voice carrying it, allowing it to fit seamlessly into the ambience of the album as a whole. "The Consort" is another love song and a standout track in an album of standouts. Here Rufus again tugs on the heartstrings with a melody and arrangement that is, supposedly, aimed at Jeff Buckley. Interpret it yourself I'd say because it's simply a beautiful love song that could be any pair of lovers "special song". God, all this romanticism is catching! "One Man Guy" is interesting for the fact that it was written by his father, with whom Rufus had a fraught relationship, caused principally by the fact that the father could not accept his son's sexuality. You'll find yourself singing along with it but wondering if there was an underlying motive for a gay man to do an apparently faithful cover version of a song called "One Man Guy" which was written by a father who had the problems he had. But this is all grist to the Rufus mill and typical of his sense of humour. The album ends with a reprise of "Cigarettes And Chocolate Milk" and penultimately, the delicate piano and voice of "In A Graveyard", a reflection on mortality that contains lines such as "Worldly sounds of endless warring/ Were for just a moment silent stars" and "Then along the bending path away/ I smiled in knowing I'd be back someday". "Poses" is, I think the most complete album he's done. There have been good, if not great, songs in his more recent output but none of his albums have been as great as a whole as this. Unfortunately, the music buying public didn't agree and this slipped through the net. Rufus has lately stated his desire, in his usual self-effacing way, to become the "New Verdi" and is apparently at work on an opera. We wait with interest. By the way, if you get the American import of "Poses" a version of John Lennon's "Across The Universe" comes as a bonus track. The video for it is on the net. Have a look. It's beautiful.