Search - Rufus Wainwright :: All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu

Classical, Stunning High Brow ~ Taste BRAVOTO!

Denis A. Lampron | Mount Baker WA | 04/20/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This the Opus of Rufus in classical dark passages. This is not for everyone. It is for the refined ear. A stunning Masterwork of the keys. Rufus has grown into a master of the high brow note. I bow to the dark perfection in this piano and voice Zenith. A+"

Very personal, intense, dark,melodramatic. But still very 'R

Adarsh Amin | 04/23/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"In his sixth album, "All Days are Nights: Songs for Lulu", Rufus mourns his mother's death. He descibes his mourning "earie", while she was still alive". Earlier this year Rufus said the album isn't directly about his mother but she does hold a 'looming force' over the album for him personally.

His mother, the Canadian folk singer Kate McGarrigle, was diagnosed with cancer in 2006 and died this January, with her musical family harmonising around her.

Here Wainwright sounds very alone with his raw grief.

The orchestral arrangements on his previous five albums had grown increasingly extravagant, and he scored his 2009 opera, "Prima Donna", for 70 musicians.

All that opulence has been stripped away here, to leave the 36-year-old singer with only his piano and his swooping, soaring, sighing emotions.The follow-up to 2007's commercial breakthrough "Release the Stars", "All Days Are Nights" is Rufus literally stripped back to just piano and voice.

Intimate, intense and up close with the openly flamboyant Wainwright as he offers up himself with no full band to hide behind.

The album includes three of Shakespeare's sonnets set to music, an aria in French from his opera, and several personal depictions of recent family life.

Much of this album sounds not unlike material from his triumphant "Want One" and "Want Two" sets: the elegant fluid opener "Who Are You New York?", the playful cantering of "Give Me What I Want and Give It to Me Now".

However, with the three sonnets (written for a Shakespeare production in Berlin), the graceful "Les feux d'artifice t'appellant" (the final aria from his Prima Donna opera), and opulent closer "Zebulon", is very arty and just opposite of current pop.

"That said, pop still does shine at times: "Martha" is a continuation of the Wainwright clan's tradition of airing their dirty laundry in public, with Rufus berating his sister for not answering the phone". Ian Wade

In fact the song takes the form of an answerphone message to his sister. "Time to go up north and see mother/Things are so much harder for her now", he sings in his slurred, bruised voice.

Also the track "The Dream" is just pleading for some big orchestral to crash in along side it and bring it to the forefront.

For sure it is sombre, a little theatrical and depressing.

"The pleasure of Rufus lies in the balance he strikes between complex texture and warm gush. Here you get the gush. Rufus and piano. No orchestration; form dictated by the expediencies of cod-Romantic self-accompaniment; a determination to expose his inner poetry, and outer voice, to as much light as possible. The three Shakespeare sonnets benefit from, well, being Shakespeare. The rest, with one exception, "Zebulon", is an essay in pianistic histrionics with dull supporting melody. You can see what he's getting at. It's called showing off" . - Nick Coleman

It may be not you favourite cup of tea. In fact it is not for the occasional listener.

Still it's very "Rufus".

Please, give it a spin.

Kate & Anna McGarrigle

Release the Stars

I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too

Rufus Does Judy At Carnegie Hall [2 CD]"

Wainwright's most personal album to date

B. Martin | 05/03/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Rufus Wainwright is so often over the top and extravagant with his music, that you tend to forget that there is an actual human being underneath all of the showmanship and bombast. All Days are Nights is a stunning reminder that Rufus is not only a very real, very fragile individal, but also one of the most gifted vocalists and composers of his generation.



Fueled by the grief from his mother's passing in January, Rufus wipes away all the fancy trappings of his previous efforts and keeps things simple working with only a piano and his own emotionally rich vocals. That's it. No strings, horns, etc. This is Wainwright at his most intimate and unguarded. The result is his best album since Poses, although this one will not instantly burrow its way into your head as that album did. These songs require pateince and repeated listens before their subtle melodies fully unfurl. But even if the songs aren't as instantly catchy as some of his other work, there is no denying the waves of emotion that wash over you while listening to this starkly beautiful album.



Rufus Wainwright has gone for broke with this album, and laid his wounded soul bare for all to see. It's a brave move from the normally difficult to read musician, but it's one that pays enormous artistic and emotional dividends. My guess is that he hopes that he never has to do it again."