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Want One: Encyclopedia - Want One

link Robert Christgau (*) link Rolling Stone RS 933 Want One is Rufus Wainwright's third album, released on Sept. 23, 2003, and produced by Marius deVries. Superb as his previous record was, the acclaimed Poses, 2003's Want One saw Wainwright's flowering as a contemporary artist of true maturity and depth. The release also records a personal journey from the dread darkness of drug addiction to the daylight of recovery. His period as a habitué of the foetid underb ...

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Want One - Track listing

Want One, Want One - Track listing

Want One: Encyclopedia - Want One

Want One

All Music Guide (2.5/5) link
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Robert Christgau (*) link
Rolling Stone RS 933

Want One is Rufus Wainwright's third album, released on Sept. 23, 2003, and produced by Marius deVries.

Superb as his previous record was, the acclaimed Poses, 2003's Want One saw Wainwright's flowering as a contemporary artist of true maturity and depth. The release also records a personal journey from the dread darkness of drug addiction to the daylight of recovery. His period as a habitué of the foetid underbelly of the New York scene where abandonment to self-immolation is seemingly de rigeur, in his own admission nearly cost him his life. It temporarily cost him his sight also. However, his emergence from a bleak existential tunnel gave birth to this first of two collections of songs recorded in New York state (at Todd Rungren's Bearsville studio). With Marius De Vries producing, Wainwright was for the first time in the studio allowed to give full reign to his creativity, with spectacular results. Without doubt, this is one of the great records of contemporary music history.

Those who might dissent from such a view will declare that the content of the record is too personal, too much artistic heart on the sleeve too unseemly a spectacle. For those less faint of heart, the twelve songs form a mighty display of the arts of not just the great singer but of the great songwriter. Such a view would be concurred with by Elton John, a man who though his own best creative days were behind him at this point (as far as we know), is notable as a connoiseur of the contemporary scene. He is also notable in the Wainwright narrative for playing a significant role in getting Wainwright out of a collision course with a hard drug end-game.

The first Want is studded with beautifully realised material. The opening O What A World is an anthem that seems to come out of the gay guy's fatal predilection for the musical, also layered with an orchestral hammering out of a major theme from Ravel's Bolero. On paper it should not work, but it does through either extraordinary producer-artist awareness of the chemistry of arrangement or extraordinary luck. The lyric is apparently whimsical - "Why am I always on a plane or a fast train? O what a world my parents gave me, always travelling, but not in love. Still I think I'm doing fine; wouldn't it be a lovely headline: 'Life Is Beautiful' in the New York Times." - a throw away, but an awareness of the Rufus Wainwright personal narrative at the point of composition immediately lends vast weight to the piece. The end result is a recording of great complexity and beauty, at once both uniquely Rufus-ian and timeless statement of the dilemma of Everyman of how to relate to one's place in the world. It's a testament to his openess and his gift as an artist that his rock-folkbiz back story doesn't grate or alienate. That said, this same aorta-trailing-down-the-fabric-of-the-shirt has and always will cause some critics to wince.

The oddness of O What A World sets the tone for a highly individual set of songs, but what sets the record apart from the output of other singer-songwriters of the present age is the outstanding quality of writing. Almost throughout, Wainwright's ability to find chord progressions of great moment sees him produce songs which stand up to constant home listening. I Don't Know Where It Is, Vicious World and Movies of Myself immediately follow the opener and form an orgiastic Rufus-fest for the diehard fan. No mawkish ballads here: the first and third are mid- and uptempo constructions respectively with marvellous flowing melodies and arresting chord changes. The accompanying musicianship is supportive, full and beautifully judged, especially Myself's McCartneyesque ascending and descending bassline. Vicious World meanwhile is a sublime electric song of misery, enlivened by the massed choir of multi-tracked Rufus. The fifth track, Pretty Things, is also stunning: here what could easily appear a superficial whine of the gay green monster becomes, under a solo piano chord construction of arresting originality, a dark, threatening experience for the listener.

Few, if any albums of the modern popular music age can boast an opening nineteen minutes where so much create and artistic endeavour reaches such heights. The conjunction of existential pain and innate talent of a completely uncommon level are the undoubted cause. For those music fans who thrive on melody and harmony, Want One is an essential recording for this opening hand of offerings.

No artist, though, has yet been able to sustain such a standard of songwriting through a whole record. The remaining nine songs are more uneven, and most of them are merely 'very enjoyable.' However, all artists ploughing similar territory would weep to be able to produce the sweet dolefulness of a Natasha, the melodrama and melodicism of Go or Go Ahead and the graceful procession of Vibrate. Some, perhaps, would make Mephistophelesian pacts to possess the Wainwright voice which is unfailingly pure and uniquely expressive from first note to last. The title song 'Want' is a excellent example of one of Wainwright's greatest strengths: that so wonderful is his voice, he does not actually need dextrous chord manipulation to produce a song of beauty. Just three plain old major chords and one minor is all he needs here to disturb the emotions of the listener here.

The intelligence in the arrangements of Rufus and De Vries is also highly noteworthy. They transcend the journalistic pidgeon-holing the artist had been saddled with at this point in his career; thus notions of 'popera,' 'baroque' and 'orchestral pop' are rendered inane and lazy. With so many choices of keyboard voices, guitar effects and orchestral textures available to the studio practitioner these days, it's a wonder that, given the artist's preparedness to gamble with multi-layered and 'big' arrangements, the final result is not one of sound overload. Wainwright asked for and got De Vries's support here for vocal layering in hundreds of individual overdubs. Yet he is smart enough to keep Pretty Things to a piano and voice excursion, Want to minimal instrumental support and to refrain from chucking the kitchen sink at 14th Street. Then again, perhaps Want One is a remarkable testament to the quality of sonic technology, for producer and artist do appear to throw everything at Go Or Go Ahead and Beautiful Child without losing control of the sound block emerging from the speakers. Impressive too, it might be remarked upon at this point, is the dynamic range of the album, from solo ballad to something Phil Spector on one of his ambitious days might have gone hell for leather at.

The result, then, is a record that has no comparison in the modern arena of contemporary popular music, not even the sister record Want Two that followed in 2004. It forms a statement of titanic weight and monolithic talent from arguably the best and most creative songwriter of his generation. Yet Want One is more than that. It forms part of the personal history of one artist: a collection of songs of intensely real and authentic emotion. And while they mostly reveal feelings and experiences of personal misery, angst and near exhaustion, it was impossible for Rufus Wainwright to keep a sense of joy in the recordings. One suspects that this is less an ecstasy of triumph at physical and psychological survival, than the exuberant expression of the abundance of creativity and skill, and above all, perhaps. the simple wonder of singing the heart.