Rufus Wainwright - Want One

The sessions for the latest Rufus Wainwright album, originally to be called simply ‘Want,’ were so fruitful that they bore what will be two full-length albums. “Want One is a presentable, accessible entity,” 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.”

‘Want One’ has everything you’ve come to expect from the “presentable” Rufus: the coying romanticism of Wainwright’s voice meandering through fourteen songs, appropriately quaint keys-and-strings arrangements, and light, theatrical melodies that accentuate his precise eloquence as a lyricist, if not really amplifying it.

Matt Parks (October 27, 2003)