Why I lost interest in Rufus Wainwright

Singer songwriter Rufus Wainwright used to cutely declare himself part of a modern Von Trapp family of folk singers. Somewhere along the line he declared himself and his family musical royalty. But I guess I missed the part where he and his family did anything that warranted their apotheosis.

I guess I might have known something was up with his downfall when the night he performed in Scottsdale and I had an extra ticket, I could not find a single taker for it…and I called 4, count ’em FOUR previously avid Rufus fans. And none of them had any interest in a FREE orchestra seat ticket to see the famed RW. None of them had other plans that night either.

Witness now my sad tale of disillusionment as I take down my Rufus Wainwright posters and close my iTunes Music Store page without making a single purchase from Rufus’ new album…

From the Associated Press (on the possibility of fathering a child):

Wainwright: I’m definitely at the age. I’m 37 and I have a lot of girlfriends out there who are really starting to climb the walls a little bit. And I’m cute, so there’s talk occasionally. I have to be honest too: Everyone in my family’s a musician and is very good. My sister’s amazing (Martha Wainwright), my father (Loudon Wainwright III) and my mother was amazing, and I have another sister, Lucy Wainwright Roach, who’s incredible. So there’s definitely a good gene pool here and I’ve gotten some offers.

From the Washington Post (on his new album):

Neither explicitly about death nor about life (the sonnets arguably excepted), “Lulu” is an exquisite, profoundly intimate grab bag of not necessarily complementary musical ideas, draped in black crepe. In other words, it’s difficult. Each song seems more inaccessible than the last, each is performed with a determined lack of sentimentality that somehow makes it even sadder.

From New York Magazine (on staking his claim as musical royalty):

Wainwright, his friends often say, can only be understood in the context of his family. “They just strike me as an aristocracy, a royal family,” says the musician Thomas Bartlett (who performs under the name Doveman), a collaborator who played at the Christmas show and recently recorded an album of Edith Piaf covers with Martha. “They’re usually the most compelling people in the room, and they know it.”

His mother, Kate, came from the singing McGarrigles from Montreal, while his father, Loudon Wainwright III, was the Westchester-raised son of a longtime Life magazine editor. Loudon was once compared to Bob Dylan for his blunt, acerbic folk songs, but while he never became nearly that big, he’s still the only family member to have a single on the American pop charts: “Dead Skunk,” back in 1972. The couple divorced in the mid seventies, and McGarrigle raised Rufus and Martha.

“We’d go out to a bar,” says artist Walt Cassidy, formerly the club kid Walt Paper, an early friend of Wainwright’s, “and Rufus’s mom and sister would be there, and if there happened to be a stage or a musical instrument, forget it—they’d kick the other band off the stage and take over the equipment and do a show.”

“It’s an eccentric family where everyone has a role to play, and Rufus is the little prince,” says singer Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons, a friend of and sometime collaborator with the Wainwrights. “He’s always had a very strong sense of his own destiny.”

A lot of Wainwright’s talent, and confidence, came from his mother. “I was her prince, her medieval courtier; she was my lady, and I was her knight,” Wainwright says. “I mean, thank God I’m gay, or else it would’ve been really weird.”

http://nymag.com/arts/popmusic/profiles/65495/

On Rufus’ unkind remarks toward Toronto and insulting his fans:

RW: “Toronto. I can’t stand it – the place drives me mad. I’m allowed to say this because I’m Canadian. I have friends there, I work there, but I find it really hard to like. I will have to go back there, but I wish I didn’t have to. It’s trying to be the New York of the Midwest. I much prefer Montreal.”

Now, this really isn’t a shock because Torontonians are used to this self-hating dialogue, especially considering most of us are imports from other suburbs, cities, provinces or countries. But whether it’s serious discontent or just Wainwright rolling in a too-cool Let’s All Hate Toronto phase, we won’t know until he eventually trundles back to the city and explains himself.

From David Gilmore:

As a songwriter and vocalist, I still have a measure of faith left in Rufus, though certainly it has diminished over the years since Poses and Want One blew me out of the water. Those albums were produced during his drug period. And there was something raw and tender about them. Many of us Rufus fans waited patiently through his Judy Garland antics which was a good publicity stunt, I admit. Then came Release the Stars – a sparkling album that was more flash than substance. The tour was really much more significant than the musical content. The Portland concert was a peak experience to behold. But the music didn’t endure.

And so we continued to wait for that promised Rufus-and-a-piano album. We went through his opera phase with him, which seemed to be more of a dud than a creative explosion. It was widely panned by critics while Rufus was expecting to burst onto the stage like a reincarnation of Verdi himself. He even got the outfits and grew the beard for the occasion. Kathud.

Meanwhile singers like Mika appeared on the stage, crowding Rufus a bit. Look at the picture above. CLEARLY Mika’s marketeers were going for the jugular with Rufus and his fan base. Only thing is, Mika really accomplished what Rufus aimed for and never achieved: Mika sold nearly 6 million copies of his first album. And he put out a songbook…one of the GREAT ways to build your fan base among passionate musicians. Rufus’ handlers seemed too busy trying to blow more smoke on stage. No iTunes freebies like Mika. No songbook. No interview with the Gay & Lesbian Review – I know because I was authorized to conduct that interview. But ask me if Rufus’ publicity company in New York ever returned a single email or phone call. No, they never did. It was starting to seem that Rufus was more focused on elevating himself to a sense of musical divinity while in fact, others were actually achieving it.

Mika drew the big crowds, sold the big albums, got the Grammy nomination. And he did it all with a LOT LESS TALENT. Sigh.

Rufus squanders his talent and inflates himself beyond his abilities…which is unfortunate because his abilities are beyond his glitter and hijinks, his self-absorption and his lederhosen.

So for those of us who waded through his Liberace-like outfit misfires, who waited hopefully that our muse would come off stage and say hello…for those of us who waited 3 years for his latest album only to find there’s nothing on it you would actually want to buy, I say we’ve waited long enough. Rufus seems sadly lost in a narcisissistically wounded playground of his own making and too fascinated by his own mystique to pay much attention to his craft. An artist who has lost sight of his inner critic is bound to burden his public at some point with mediocrity that really should have been left to the editing room floor. But you can’t tell that to royalty…or someone who perceives himself as such.

What comes next from Wainwright will undoubtedly be undignified as the outside world of critical failure punctures his balloon. Whereas once we clung to Rufus to save us from the degeneration of pop music, now I think we’re witnessing the deflation of a potentially great career.

One former fan I know suggested we start a campaign to get Rufus back on drugs so he can write another good album. Hey, I’d chip in for a bite guard for him.