planetdan music

Wednesday, November 17, 2004 :::

Want Two by Rufus Wainwright

Rating:

Why I bought it: He's one of my top ten favorite musicians.

What I think about it: Last year's Want One was one of my top three CDs of the year. It was originally supposed to be released as a double album, along with the tracks from this new album, but was split up into two separate releases for marketing reasons. The problem is that this type of scenario inevitably leads people to believe that the second release is nothing more than B-sides or throw-aways, and in this case the quality of the songs does little to dispell that theory. The songs aren't that bad at all, in fact most are quite good, but in comparison to the brilliance of Want One, they are subpar. Only two songs really achieve any type of brilliance here. The rest are enjoyable, but too slowly paced and sometimes a little too extravagant with the orchestration. Some of the songs run as long as eight minutes, just begging to be fast forwarded. It's a mild disappointment, only because Rufus had yet to release a single bad song in my opinion. On this CD, the opening track Agnus Dei is definitely an over-indulgent low point. The remainder of the CD is a worthwhile purchase, but it definitely would have benefitted from a better pace and variety. Plus, four of these songs were already released as part of an online EP a few months ago, so a lot of the material here is far from new. Don't get me wrong, though, it's still a really good three-and-a-half-star CD, just not a good companion piece to Want One. And he's still one of the greatest songwriters living today.

Song(s) worth a listen: The One You Love ; Gay Messiah ; Hometown Waltz ; The Art Teacher

Listen at amazon.

::: posted by dan at 1:05 PM :: #

Sunday, November 07, 2004 :::

I Heart Huckabees by Jon Brion

Rating:

Why I bought it: Because Jon Brion is a bonafide genius.

What I think about it: I hate the world for not appreciating Jon Brion enough. Except David O. Russell, who was smart enough to hire Jon Brion to score his new movie, and then went even further and allowed him to add five of his own full-fledged songs onto the soundtrack. But then that pisses me off too, because it obviously means that Jon Brion doesn't have another solo CD in the works to follow up his brilliant Meaningless CD from years ago. I guess five new songs is better than nothing. Plus the score to the movie is better than average as well. And we still have his work on the new Fiona Apple CD to look forward to, if they would just release the damn thing already. So all's well that ends well.

Song(s) worth a listen: Knock Yourself Out ; Revolving Door ; Strangest Times ; Over Our Heads

Listen at amazon.

::: posted by dan at 10:02 PM :: #