Customer Reviews

All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

Early in Rufus' career, he sang of how studying Schubert made his head explode. Well, the Schubert has paid off. The musical compositions here, all expressed in voice and piano alone, are suitably complex and very accessible. Rufus has a wonderful piano-playing technique, and his songs are quite nice. This is a beautiful recording, an instant classic, and a must-have for all fans of good music, and especially all fans of Rufus. God Bless Rufus Wainwright!

I'm a little behind the curve with Rufus Wainwright as I only discovered him in 2009. During this brief period I have purchased each of his albums and formulated my impression of him as an artist and songwriter. A reader here doesn't need my opinion of Wainwright's considerable talent but in 'All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu' we see an artist simply laying his emotions on the table for all to see. It's an intensely personal recording full of the pain of loss and the perspective of life, love, and caring.

After opening with 'Who are you New York' which seems to be Wainwright's call to a nebulous person of fantasy or almost faceless faces of the city he then moves into the darkness of 'So sad with what I have'. He is wearing all the despair of his mother's inevitable passing, his own feelings of loneliness and regret, and tinges of hope for the future on his sleeve. All of this turbulence shines through his voice and piano. The raw recording listens as though Rufus simply walked into the studio and said "turn on the mic" and started playing. After the desperate plea to his sister in 'Martha' and the one upbeat song on the record 'Give me what I want...' we come to 'True Loves' for an extravagant foray into an almost burlesque style of playing with a direct homage to Gershwin. It's absolutely brilliant. The Shakespearian sonnets are a bit of a left-turn in the proceedings, but not a bad one, and Wainwright turns back into the shadows with 'The Dream' conjuring a driving statement of love and loss. The record closes with the absolutely stunning 'Zebulon' that puts Wainwright's grief on display by using his entire singing range, restrained piano, and tempo allowing us to share his conversation with an old friend.

This is certainly the best I've heard from Rufus Wainwright and for me this record is in a class with the best singer/songwriter albums ever recorded. Think Joni Mitchell's 'Blue'.

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]

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+

I've loved Rufus since his self-titled debut came out back in '98. I'm also a huge fan of artists who are willing to "bare it all" by forsaking all the flash and dazzle that good production brings with it. Acoustic tracks are sometimes far superior than their studio counterparts. Just look at Tori Amos, Alanis Morissette, Rufus, and others.

My problem with this album is not in the lack of orchestral accompaniment or even in the lack of backing vocals. The idea of getting back to the basics and giving us nothing more than the piano and his voice is a spectacular one.

Where Rufus falls short on this album is in the songwriting. In part, I've loved Rufus' work because of how wonderfully he can craft a melody and spin words cleverly. But here, none of the melodies soar and few of the lyrics move me (excluding the Shakespeare, obviously).

Although most of the album, I'm assuming, is meant to come across as mellow and relaxing, I find it all to be less relaxing and more boring.

The two strongest songs on the album are "Sonnet 20" and "Les feux d'artifice t'appellent." The latter is easily the greatest accomplishment on the album. Rufus, in a stroke of genius, uses the piano to make the sound of the fireworks referenced in the title. Honestly, that was brilliant.

I don't doubt that Rufus is capable of wowing us with nothing more than piano and vocals. He's done it before. Think of "The Art Teacher" from Want Two. Just piano and Rufus, but the melody is stunning and the lyrics are clever. I saw Rufus open for Tori Amos once, and he sat up there with no backing vocals and no other instruments besides his keyboard. He sounds better that way on some songs than the flashier studio tracks.

But on "Lulu," Rufus disappoints.

I'm generally a fan of RW, but lately everything he sings sounds the same to me. I'll still be a fan, but I might not buy much more that he puts out.

Intense pain wrapped into hauntingly beautiful music is what we get with Rufus's new album. All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu is the Canadian-American singer-songwriter's sixth studio album, after a series of other projects, reaching from the re-enactment of the legendary Judy Garland concert 1961 at Carnegie Hall to the world premiere of his first opera. The album's eponymous '"Lulu" refers to the "dark, brooding, dangerous woman that lives within all of us," as Rufus stated in a recent interview, adding that his personal "Lulu" is Louise Brooks in the 1929 movie Pandora's Box. Most of the album's twelve songs were written while dealing with his mother's losing battle against cancer. The result is a stunning homage to her, the brilliant folk musician Kate McGarrigle, who passed away earlier this year. All the songs feature just Rufus's unique and compelling voice, with him accompanying himself on the piano. The grandeur of past albums and projects has been replaced with a stripped-down, bare version of the singer. What is left are spectacular piano arrangements, ranging from bright, sophisticated, even witty compositions to heartbreakingly drawn-out laments.
One of these laments is the song "Sad with What I Have," which reflects upon the feeling of intense sadness although being in a seemingly happy relationship. It does leave us, however, on a slightly optimistic note "Sad with what I have - except for you" is the song's last verse. As a nice contrast to these depressing sounds stands "Give Me What I Want And Give It to Me Now," a very bright, lively, yet highly demanding song that addresses - according to Rufus - the critics who reviewed his first opera, Prima Donna, which premiered at the Manchester International Festival last summer. His wry message to them: "I will eat you, your folks, and your kids for breakfast!"
The middle-section of the album contains a song cycle of three sonnets by William Shakespeare, which Rufus set to music for a project with the American avant-garde stage director Robert Wilson for a show at the Berliner Ensemble in 2009. Sonnet 43, the first one of the cycle, contains the album's title in its final couplet: "All days are nights to see till I see thee / And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me." One of the album's highlights is Sonnet 20, "A Woman's Face," set to a seemingly simple yet astonishingly beautiful piano arrangement. As the poem speaks of the poet's love to a young man, it contains a special connection to the openly gay singer.
The album reaches its climax with the extraordinary lyrical and musical composition "The Dream." The piano takes us through the whole range, resting now and then in staccatos and trills, while the lyrics float between the dream and the reality of love. Even after "the dream has come and gone," the listener is left with a lingering feeling of awe.
Towards the end of the album, we get to hear Rufus sing an aria of the aforementioned opera Prima Donna. The aria, "Les Feux d'artifice t'appellent," describes how the protagonist, an aging opera diva, views the fireworks on Bastille Day in Paris from her apartment window above the city. The sense of melancholy and detachment leads over into the album's last piece, "Zebulon." The restrained piano part, consisting of very somber chords, sets the gloomy mood to the lyrics, which speak of the singer's mother fighting cancer, as well as of the intense longing for the easier days of childhood. After the song's last chords, which are reminiscent of death bells tolling, the final sound is the sonorous release of the piano's pedal. It marks the end of an exceptional work of art that is not just an homage to Kate McGarrigle, but to music itself. It celebrates its influences, most notably the European romantic Lieder, yet forms something very unique, unrivaled in the contemporary popular music market.

Where do I begin? This is a breathtaking album that is vintage Rufus Wainwright. You have all the trademarks...the intelligent, memorable lyrics; intricate and melodic musical lines; Rufus's angelic voice and remarkable musicianship, and to add to that usual mix...some wizardry with the piano. As always Rufus is able to transcend genres and push the limits without ever appearing to try too hard.
He is a singer and composer for the ages, and this album rivals "Poses" for the distinction of being his best work yet.

Being an avid Rufus Wainwright fan, I'm always excited to hear a new album - but I truly think no other album until now has showcased this man's remarkable talent and attention to detail. Simple yet truly stunning.