Albums of The Year # 12 Rufus Wainwright - Unfollow The Rules

 

Rufus Wainwright is one of those artists that will always take me back to the first time I ever heard their voice and experienced their musical vision. Nick Drake, Big Star and Elliot Smith particularly have a similar effect on me. People whose work shifted the conversation in my head in small, almost imperceptible but definite ways and that you are glad are just there. 

In Wainwright's case, for me that Road to Damascus moment was when I first heard the songs from his second album Want One on its release in 2003. It was a remarkable statement, and perhaps remains his definitive one, though he had done plenty before and has done plenty since to add and enrich his legacy.

So here we are, almost twenty years on from that, and the release of his latest album Unfollow The Rules, a record with much that reminds you of what he's done before, yet one that also stands in its own space. In  a way it's best experienced on its own merits rather than compared and ranked against former glories. It's a record certainly worthy of consideration on these terms.

Wainwright is a highly versatile and accomplished songwriter, singer, lyricist and arranger. Versed in classical, operatic, musical and literate tropes, his songs often have the remarkable quality of seeming to take actual flight and escape earthbound cares and woes, and many of the songs on Unfollow The Rules do just that. I've been experiencing it over the last twenty four hours with immense pleasure and satisfaction and look forward to getting to know these fine songs better.

This is an essentially romantic vision. But also a realistic one, aware of the contradictions of living in a world hellbent on nosedive and seething in hatred and reactionary impulse. Wainwright's very much a Twenty First Century artist.  Finding plenty of small, but perfectly formed consolations on the twelve tracks gathered together here. Love, beauty, humour, family, compassion, peace, it's all here..A record to immerse yourself in and experience the moment. To distract you from bad things going on elsewhere.

So, best not to look back to Posies, Want One, Want Two, or indeed any of the records that Wainwright  made back in the day. Unfollow The Rules is not a mid-career reinvention on any level. Just an articulate and consumate statement of who the man is is and what he stands for, as he makes his way into middle age in a world we never imagined coming into being when we were starting out. Rufus doing what Rufus does best here. Already destined I'd say to be one of my favourite albums of the year.