| Product Summary | | Label: Universal Music Group | | UPC: 00602517301610 | | Release Date: 5/15/2007 | | Buy.com Sku: 204420481 | | Item#: M3LGM3 | Format:  CD |
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(P) 2007 Geffen Records
(C) 2007 Geffen Records
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"...relentless theatrics...so rich, so intelligent..." Anna Britten, Dot Music
"...a distinctive and extraordinarily talented songwriter." BBC Collective
"...he still yearns more beautifully than anyone." Entertainment Weekly
"Complex, melodramatic, ambitious, vain, beautiful and frequently magnificent...an album that will endure." Observer Music Monthly
"A wonderful album, packed with stunning melodies and brilliant lyrics." The Guardian
| | Album Notes and Credits |
Notes & Personnel Info |  | Personnel: Rufus Wainwright (vocals, acoustic guitar, nylon-string guitar, piano, percussion); Anna Prohaska (vocals); Si?n Phillips (spoken vocals); Gerry Leonard (guitar, electric guitar); Smokey Hormel (guitar); Jack Petruzzelli (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, banjo, background vocals); Richard Thompson (acoustic guitar, electric guitar); Joan Wasser (electric guitar, violin, background vocals); Ronith Mues (harp); Gabriel Adorj n, Rahel Rilling (violin); Raphael Sachs (viola); D vid Adorj n (cello); London Session Orchestra (strings); Pirmin Grehl (flute); Rachelle Garniez (accordion); Matt Johnson (recorder, drums, percussion, background vocals); Paul Shapiro (tenor saxophone); Briggan Krauss (baritone saxophone); Dominic Derasse, Carl Albach, Dave Trigg (trumpet, piccolo trumpet); John Chudoba, Raphael Mentzen, Florian D?rpholz, Steven Bernstein , Barry Danielian (trumpet); Louis Schwadron, Ozan Cakar (French horn); Dan Levine (trombone); J?rg Sandner, John Medeski, Kate McGarrigle (piano); Jason Hart (organ, background vocals); Rob Burger (organ); Neil Tennant (keyboards, synthesizer, vibraphone, loops, sampler, background vocals); Larry Mullins (vibraphone, marimba, glockenspiel, bass drum, bongos, castanets, cowbells, cymbals, shaker, tabla, tambourine, timpani, triangle, wood block, bells); Jeff Hill (upright bass, electric bass, background vocals); Tony Scherr (upright bass); Ian Thomas, Kenny Wollesen (drums); Julianna Raye (tambourine, background vocals); Jason Boshoff, Marius de Vries, Tom Stephan (programming); Lucy Roche, Sharon Jones , Lygia Forrest, Jenni Muldaur, Martha Wainwright, Teddy Thompson (background vocals). | | Audio Mixers: Marius de Vries; Andy Bradfield. | | Recording information: Angel Studios, Islington, London, England; Brooklyn Recording, Brooklyn, NY; Legacy Studios, New York, NY; Saal 4, Berlin, Germany; Second Story, New York, NY; Strongroom, London, . England. | | Photographers: Rufus Wainwright; Lucy Roche; Jorn Weisbr?dt; Sam Taylor-Wood. | | Arranger: Steven Bernstein . | | As the son of confessional singer-songwriters Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle, it isn't exactly surprising that Rufus Wainwright's previous albums have read like diaries set to music, but the sometimes almost embarrassing level of personal detail in his lyrics set a new standard for lyrical intimacy. RELEASE THE STARS continues Wainwright's open-book approach to songwriting, but where his previous epics WANT ONE and WANT TWO were concept albums about addiction and emotional frailty, this album is considerably more hopeful. | | Recorded in Berlin with the Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tennant, whose unambiguously gay-themed lyrics and musically expansive ambitions were an obvious inspiration for Wainwright's own music, RELEASE THE STARS finds the singer-songwriter in a mood of wary optimism, balancing love songs with rueful social commentary and a few playful looks back at his dissolute past. Musically, RELEASE THE STARS is Wainwright's most ornate, operatic album yet, with a use of musical theater and modern classical music not seen since Van Dyke Parks' heyday. And yet Wainwright's often overlooked gifts as a melodicist are on full display, too, giving the over-the-top arrangements a sturdy underpinning that keeps the album well-grounded. | | If ever there was an artist that embodied both the urbane popular songsmithing of Cole Porter and the epic winged grandeur of Richard Wagner it is Rufus Wainwright. Having not so much perfected as succumbed to this yin-yang pull on his laboriously ambitious and intermittently inspired 2003 and 2004 albums Want One and Want Two, Wainwright once again delivers a baroque collection of songs on 2007's Release the Stars. Recorded at least partially in Berlin and London with Pet Shop Boys lead Neil Tennant, the album finds Wainwright casting himself as a kind of expatriate torch singer, a veritable Marlene Dietrich of emotion who, as he laments on "Going to a Town," is "so tired of America." In that sense, Release the Stars is at once intensely personal and utterly theatrical with Wainwright playing both ing?nue and femme fatale in a series of increasingly cinematic pop-operas about true love gone not so much bad, but sad. He pleads to make it to the other side of town, and possibly the other side of monogamy, with his brown-eyed lover in "Tiergarten" and dreams lazily about, "the boys that made me lose the blues and then my eyesight" on "Sanssouci." While these songs are lushly produced, often with full orchestration, and while Wainwright has a knack for pretty, lilting melodies and concrete imagery there is nonetheless a distinct lack of pop hooks here. In fact, only the chugging T. Rex inspired glam rock of "Between My Legs" gets at any real pop meat. The main problem is that it's never quite clear if Wainwright, who has always been to pop music as cabaret is to Broadway, is dressing opera up as pop or vice versa. But when you wear custom Lederhosen as well as Wainwright does throughout the album liner notes, does it really matter? [The CD was also released with a DVD.] ~ Matt Collar |
Producer: Rufus Wainwright; Marius De Vries; Rufus Wainwright; Neil Tennant |
Engineer: Tom Schick; Tom Schick |
Musical Guests | | Richard Thompson | | Martha Wainwright |
| Entertainment Reviews
 | Rufus Wainwright - Release The Stars - CD By: Michael Cartwright - Cinema Blend CD Reviews Published on: 5/16/2007 4:28 PM | | Rufus Wainwright has always crafted elaborate albums, but Release the Stars is surely his most ambitious yet. It's a dedication to his mother, includes a full-fledged orchestra and even features the words of Andrew Lloyd Webber. This grandiose approach isn't the least bit surprising though, considering Wainwright's recent recreation of Judy Garland's 1961 Carnegie Hall concert.
...read the full review |
| Rufus Wainwright - Release the Stars - CD Review By: El Bicho - Blogcritics.org Reviews Published on: 6/22/2007 1:09 PM | | If you are a Rufus Wainwright fan, then you will neither be surprised nor disappointed by Release the Stars. If this is your first contact with the son of the equally fascinating Loudon Wainwright III, you’ll want to quickly get back to the basics with Poses and Want One and Want Two; those CDs are the primers for this new polished work....read the full review |
| | Compilation Appearances |
| | Technical Info | | Release Date : 05/15/2007 | | Original Release Date : 2007 | | Catalog ID : 0008767 | | Label : Geffen Records (USA) | | Number of Discs : 1 | | Runtime : 55m : 9s | | Studio/Live : Studio | | Mono/Stereo : Stereo | | SPAR Code : n/a | | UPC : 00602517301610 |
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| | Professional Reviews | | Rolling Stone (p.102)
- 3 stars out of 5 -- "[He] surrounds his piano with delicate strings, keyboard flourishes and other instrumental touches without sounding too big or fussy."Spin (p.97)
- 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "[T]he songs are actually strong enough to hold the weight of the over-the-top arrangements." Q (Magazine)
(p.87)
- Ranked #10 in Q's "The 50 Best Albums Of 2007" -- "[M]ore rich in emotional drama and sumptuous orchestration than any other record this year." MusicOMH.com 10 of 10
Relax gentle readers, its good. It's great in fact - an instant classic. But it's different...Release The Stars is not without his obligatory camp charm and sense of fun. Tulsa is an example, as is Between My Legs, a departure in that it is electric-guitar driven, vaguely similar to Want Two's The One You Love. What the line 'I'll shed a tear between my legs' means is open to some level of interpretation, but not much. His efforts to leave the whole gay thing to one side for a while are not exactly helped by the album's sleeve, containing Rufus dressed in lederhosen like one of the Von Trapp children...All in all, his vision has moved on, as it had to. After the tremulous Wants, this is the comedown, and few comedowns are as pretty as this. It is different in many ways, but never neglects the melodic, vocal and lyrical genius that has established, and will continue to establish, his status as one of the all time greats. - Barnaby Smith
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| | Bio | | | Rufus Wainwright Rufus Wainwright?s Want Two is the companion album to his critically acclaimed 2003 album Want One. The 12 track album presents a different side to the ?Want? sessions and is further enhanced by a bonus DVD of a live Rufus show at San Francisco?s legendary venue the Fillmore Auditorium recorded earlier this year. ?Want One was a personal album,? Wainwright explains, ?and it dealt with my triumphs in personal battles, Want Two is far more broader and doesn?t dwell on one subject.? The artwork for the albums help signify the two albums differences. In Want One, Wainwright is dressed as a knight complete with armor to signify these battles while Want Two has Wainwright dressed as a woman. ?Want Two is a far more feminine record. It explores the darker more mysterious side of nature.? He adds, ?Want Two is about the world we live in. I feel every songwriter should attempt to represent the era in which he or she lives, and we?re in an era where the world is entering puberty which of course means that it is overdramatic and awkward. It was funny to see after I was able to get my life in order what an utter mess the world is in.? Like Want One, the album was produced by Marius deVries and showcases Wainwright?s love of opera and classical music which he synthesizes with different types of pop music, ?I?m an octopus using my many arms to grab at a wide variety of styles.? The album begins with ?Agnus Dei? Wainwright says of it ?this has been kicking around my head for years. The music was originally for violin. But my madam voice came in and wrested it away. It is a distinctly Middle Eastern piece which begins with the sound of a combalom, a Hungarian instrument made of wood and strings and is played with mallets. I?ve always been a fan of Masses and Requiems. I wrote it around at the beginning of the Iraq war. Agnus Dei means Lamb of God in Latin, and it?s sentiment of forgiveness of our worldly sins, give us a peace couldn?t be more perfect in the world today. I think we need some divine intervention.? He pauses and adds, ?I think we?ll get it.?
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