Want One

Rufus Wainwright

Dreamworks Records

… Want One

Rufus Wainwright

Dreamworks Records

Recommended if you like: John Lennon, Ron Sexsmith

Rufus Wainwright is the life of the party. He’s the kind of guy who’d show up at a wedding in a polka dot suit, drink himself silly, fight the bridesmaids to catch the bouquet, fall in love with the wedding singer and have his heart broken, all in the span of 45 minutes.

Lucky for us, he’d probably write a song or two about it afterwards, staying up until 5 a.m., chain smoking and watching syndicated Oprah reruns in the meantime.

Over the years, we’ve come to know Wainwright as a bit of a lush, a bit of a drama queen, a bit of a romanticist, but all the same, an astounding musician with a hyperactive imagination.

In fact, the first track on Want One, “Oh What a World,” exceeds the grandiose production and choral orchestration that have come to be mainstays in his material. While sister Martha Wainwright and a jolly chorus of others hum like songbirds in the background, Rufus gets busy in the spotlight, spotting “men reading fashion magazines,” and envisioning a New York Times headline that reads “Life is Beautiful.” All of this is over tuba burps, harp pluckings and a steady beat of horse clops.

The following track, “I Don’t Know What it Is,” reintroduces Wainwright’s jumpy piano, over which he throws a “bucket of rhymes” and demands, “Give me Calais/or give me Dover.”

While the jovial “Vibrate” finds Wainwright crooning, “I tried to dance Britney Spears/I guess I’m getting on in years,” the big-band production that follows it finds him coming home to “14th Street,” where he’ll “learn how to save/not just borrow.”

Like most records, Want One has its highs and lows. Though all of these songs are brimming with passion and brilliant melody, Wainwright’s inherent softness sometimes has him getting all too close to pushing the adult contemporary envelope – his sharp sense of humor and operatic prerogative never failing to swoop in to the rescue.

Want One is the first installment of a two-part series, with Want Two due out sometime early next year. On his Web site, Wainwright explains, “Want Two will have some of the more daunting tracks, the operatic, weird stuff, some heavy numbers that relate to my classical sensibilities.”

It’s easy to believe Wainwright when he sings “I don’t want to be John Lennon/or Leonard Cohen,” on the album’s title track. Over three albums, he’s proven to have more to offer than your average singer-songwriter, and Want One puts him one step closer to the elite.