Rufus Wainwright has an odd way of making popular music. It’s theatrical, but yet it’s still good. It might not walk straight, but it still strolls happily down the lane of the offbeat.
With a title like “Cigarettes And Chocolate Milk”, you expect the song that follows to be terrible, but this song has a melody that sucks you in with the reporting of the vices we all lock onto for help.
Each song comes, but not many touch you like “California”. Wainwright sings about all the beautiful clichés associated with Cali and lends us the perfect line, “‘Life is the longest death in California.” “Grey Gardens” is another lovely walk, but don’t just bring your ho along because you’ll need the shovel as well.
Rufus does daddy proud as he covers his song, “One Man Guy”. I’m just not all that excited that he found it necessary to cover it.
Rufus Wainwright keeps art and music close at hand. It can be a good thing, but there is always the bad. Some songs just drag on. Perhaps it was his goal to break apart our good old reliable verse-chorus-verse, but those who have tried to break the cycle in the past have fallen to its formula. Wainwright is no different. A track like “Evil Angel” seems to go on for years. When the formula is held up to the light, Wainwright shines. And when he strays, he falls.
+ rae gun
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.