Unfollow The Rules
Rufus Wainwright’s first original album in eight years isn’t so much a reinvention as an opulently crafted highlight reel, a career-spanning sampler of the singer’s many styles and guises.
This album has been described as a “bookend to Act One” of Rufus Wainwright’s career, which has so far covered soundtracks, operas and reworkings of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Echoes of each reverberate here, but really, it’s another embrace of the orchestral pop that made him famous.
Reaching middle age is an interesting landmark to acknowledge with such a bold artistic statement, less so once you realise Wainwright wanted to emulate the classic periods of Leonard Cohen and Frank Sinatra
His tenth album overall, Unfollow the Rules signifies an emphatic return to pop for Rufus Wainwright following a recording of his first opera (2015's Prima Donna) and a set of Shakespeare sonnets set to music (2016's Take All My Loves).
Rufus Wainwright has introduced Unfollow the Rules as coming full-circle in relation to his 1998 self-titled debut album. Indeed, it is a ho...
Anybody looking for Rufus Wainwright to serve up a genuine subversion of his personal rulebook might have to wait until next time; this LP, his ninth, is apparently intended to bring down the curtain on the first act of his career, rather than serve as the opening strains of the second.
The first thing that strikes you about ‘Unfollow The Rules’, Rufus Wainwright’s first ‘pop’ album in eight years, is how
Rufus Wainwright returns with a typically theatrical pop record; it might not convert the uninitiated, but longtime fans will find much to love
We've all been there, haven't we? You emerge sometime in the morning after, bleary-eyed, furry-tongued, and with an aching, but indistinct feeling that you...
Unfollow the Rules by Rufus Wainwright album review by Leslie Chu. The singer/songwriter's forthcoming release comes out on July 10, via BMG
Our critic rounds up this week's best releases – as well as recent albums by The Streets and Rufus Wainwright
A self-described second act by an artist who's already been through several. Album review by Liz Thomson