Pop Review | Rufus Wainwright

[DudeAsInCool]

Vicious World Inflicts Bruises, but the Humor Is Optional

By JON PARELES

NY Times • November 28, 2003

hen Rufus Wainwright sings, he sustains every word, using a vibrato that's both vulnerable and obstinate. He's not exactly a crooner: his voice is too nasal to be soothing. But he savors and clings to his melodies as if they're the only thing that will carry him through what one song calls a "Vicious World."

Advertisement

That song — part hymn, part Tin Pan Alley ballad — started Mr. Wainwright's set on Tuesday night at Town Hall, where he was flippant between songs but candid within them. He sang about desire and loneliness, about a "Gay Messiah" and about Sept. 11, about harmful cravings and about the father who left him.

Mr. Wainwright is the son of two songwriters, Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle; he joked about being the scion of a folk dynasty. His band included three more second-generation songwriters. His sister Martha Wainwright and Jenni Muldaur, the daughter of Geoff and Maria Muldaur, both sang backup vocals, and Teddy Thompson, the son of Richard and Linda Thompson, played guitar and opened the concert with his own solo set.

Mr. Wainwright's song "Want" declared, "I don't want to be John Lennon or Leonard Cohen/I just want to be my Dad with a slight sprinkling of my mother." Actually, Mr. Wainwright has absorbed not only his parents' folky guitar chords and parlor songs but also waltzes, operatic arias, standards and 1960's pop. Playing piano or guitar, he sidesteps most current music, and he doesn't exactly recreate any given era.

Instead he lingers in a zone where melody reigns and the music sounds cozy, but there's no false comfort. "Is there anyone else who's too in love with beauty?" he sang in "I Don't Know What It Is," adding, "Is there anyone else who has slightly mysterious bruises?"

What saves his songs from the taint of whining is their elaborate, eccentric structure. Much of the set came from Mr. Wainwright's new album, "Want One" (Dreamworks), which lavishes orchestrations and vocal harmonies on the songs. Although he sang about living in Manhattan, the music often looked toward California, particularly the stately sway of Beach Boys ballads. Within the plush sanctuaries of the music, he confessed to confusion and desperate need.

Mr. Thompson has also learned well from his parents, who personalized the heritage of English traditional songs. He uses sturdy, folky melodies and gallows-humored lyrics to portray himself as a deeply troubled character: "I don't even like you, oh can't you tell?/Whenever I'm sober I treat you like hell," he sang. Sparse guitar chords, subtly changing in the course of a song, were all the accompaniment he needed for his smooth, reedy voice, and playing the songs absolutely straight brought out all their bleak stoicism.