Musical dilletante or musical renaissance man, Rufus Wainwright is both and on the first song available for downloading on stereogum off his eagerly anticipated new album out this June.
The name of the album, All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu, would have you rolling your eyes by anybody else at all but by Rufus we are all shivering with an-ti-ci-pation.
The song, a travelogue of New York as RW goes looking for love in the city from Grand Central Station to the Empire State Building in front of a glistening glissadro pf piano notes. It is just piano and overblown but it is hard to say why because it really isn’t. Maybe just that voice, right?
It is excellent and promises much for the new album and given his excursions over the best coupla years I hope (though what I’ve read, I doubt) he keeps to the straight up songs here.