Soap poperas

Rufus Wainwright's new Poses

by MIkael Wood

I don't think there's necessarily the great art of living out in California that there is here," 26-year-old singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright reflects over the phone from the Manhattan offices of his PR firm. We're talking about the world's top cities, and Wainwright's narrowing down the field. "Europe," he announces with a burst of clarity. "I want to move to ancient Rome. I mean, like, ancient Rome, like 2000 years ago." I tell him I'm not sure the suits at DreamWorks, the label that released his homonymous debut three years ago as well as his new Poses, can make that happen. "I know," he sighs. "Better sell a lot of records."

Platinum success is not likely to come easy for Wainwright. Sure, as the son of celebrated folk singers Loudon Wainwright and Kate McGarrigle, he's got pedigree going for him. And he's young, hip, and good-looking enough to have scored a Gap ad back when his debut came out. But dramatic and often confessional Tin Pan Alley-influenced piano balladry embellished with Van Dyke Parks arrangements isn't exactly what the kids are buying these days. So Wainwright has had to work to find an audience for his romantic brand of mature pop, which has been called everything from "neo-cabaret" to "popera." Being among a scene of like-minded adult-pop songwriters that included Aimee Mann and Michael Penn, as well as in-demand producer/multi-instrumentalist Jon Brion (who produced Wainwright's debut), helped when Wainwright's first album was released. But there still wasn't much in the way of heavy-rotation slots on KROQ for seasoned singer-songwriters, especially for one willing to address the difficult themes the openly gay Wainwright is drawn to.

Poses, for example, opens with what at first seems to be a playful little piece of classic piano-based musical theater about certain human vices, "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk." "Everything it seems I like's a little bit stronger/A little bit thicker/A little bit harmful for me," Wainwright sings in the first verse before hinting in the minor-key chorus at "Those other things which for several reasons we won't mention," things that are "A little bit stranger/A little bit harder/A little bit deadly." The song turns out to be a sobering rumination on AIDS-era romance. And "California," an upbeat guitar-pop number, is a tribute to the halcyon contours of sunny West Coast living with a bittersweet afterbite: "You're such a wonder that I think I'll stay in bed," Wainwright says to the state, admitting that there's "so much to plunder that I think I'll sleep instead."

"That song was a product of that famous LA thing of it's gorgeous and sunny outside and I just wanna stay in my dark room," he says of the tune, which he wrote while living in LA several years ago. "It's like, if I see one more Corvette or beach person, I'm gonna murder everybody."

The darkness that informs many of the songs on Poses is, he reveals, the result of a serious bout of self-analysis that followed the positive critical reception of his first CD. "I definitely think this record is more interior than the last one. When I made my first one, I was like, `Oh, I'm gonna be a huge star.' I was pretty horrid, actually. But I've since learned that everyone's just trying to do their own thing, and that even if I'm doing really well, once you get down to it, it's just songs."

The singer turned to producer and long-time family friend Pierre Marchand, who's best known for his work with Sarah McLachlan, to bring that "sobering" realization to musical fruition. Marchand streaks Jon Brion's woody pop patchwork with an art-rock patina full of Eastern-sounding strings, massed harmonies, and even a beatbox or two.

"It has a sound," Wainwright insists of the new record. "I was playing it a lot up in my apartment, and there were these girls next door, and one day I walked out and they were like, `Oh my God, you have the new Radiohead album,' but it was my record. I think there was something about the first record that was kind of like, `What the hell is that? What just happened in here?' -- like, the weird, jumpy clown guy comes in. Now, the brooding teenagers, let them come."