I Want It All

Back in 2004, Rufus Wainwright released his third album, Want One. It’s a grandiose affair, obscenely lush and theatrical with an incredible assortment of ideas.

Pretty Things

Gentle yearning piano ballads sit next to bombastic, velvet layered passages of intensity. Genres bristle up against each other, fighting for space, lurching from pop to cabaret to opera to folk. Sometimes within the same song.

Rufus sings passionately through it all; soaring above a full orchestra, barrelling across violent acoustic guitars or bleating plaintively at the piano. From the instrumentation to the naked painful emotion on display, everything is turned up to eleven.

It’s an incredible piece of work. Rufus thought it was his instant masterpiece, a stone cold classic and fully expected the world to fall, fawning at his feet. 

Vicious World

The great unwashed, however, showed complete indifference. No one seemed to notice it had even been released.

Maybe it was the wrong time. Rufus is a dandy. In 2004 this was not what the world was looking for.

At that time the music scene was searching for the next version of The Strokes. An opera loving flamboyant crooner was no one's idea of ‘the next big thing’.

It was clear that Rufus needed to change. His style was too wild and unfocused. No one knew what to expect. He was hard to categorise and therefore difficult to sell. I mean, look at that album sleeve!

He needed to appease the powers that be. So for his next album he reinvented himself. He dressed in double denim, plugged the telecaster into a classic Marshall amp and  . . . Oh come on! Of course he didn’t.

Beautiful Child

Rufus doubled down on who he was and bet the house on himself. He didn’t compromise and instead played the long game. He found allies. 

Barbara Charone, a publicist for Warner Music, heard Want One and said “I have to make this album a success.”

At her suggestion they re released it in England and gave it a huge push getting Rufus featured in the NME and positive album reviews across the press. 

He was endorsed by Elton John who declared him to be “the greatest songwriter on the planet.” The critical praise was abundant and importantly sales were respectable and, for the record company, acceptable.

Oh What A World

It was my birthday on Wednesday and to celebrate my wife took me to the Royal Albert Hall to see Rufus Wainwright. He was performing Want One with the BBC Concert Orchestra as part of the Proms.

They don’t just give those slots to anyone you know! Not bad a for a flopped album. 

I could rave on for hours about how good Rufus is and how awesome that concert was but you can hear it for yourself on BBC Sounds if you like.

I Don't Know What It Is

This week’s top tip is to believe in yourself.

Have the bravery and confidence to do what you want to do. Don’t pander to the crowd.

If you think your thing is good enough, and you think it’s what you want to do then do it.

Rufus didn’t change for other people. Rufus just kept doing what Rufus does. I still wouldn’t really know how to categorise his music. Baroque pop?

The work Rufus Wainwright created in 2004 was a slow burner. It took time for people to catch up with where he was already at.

Twenty years later and Want One is now considered a classic. 

Rufus is not a global superstar but here he is with a sold out Royal Albert Hall prom to his name, being applauded to the rooftops for stuff he wrote two decades earlier when no one was listening.

Plough your own furrow is the phrase. Go or go ahead, get out your plough and make that furrow, whatever it may be.