Unlimited Streaming
Listen to this album in high quality now on our apps
Start my trial period and start listening to this albumEnjoy this album on Qobuz apps with your subscription
SubscribeEnjoy this album on Qobuz apps with your subscription
Digital Download
Purchase and download this album in a wide variety of formats depending on your needs.
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 ingénue 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 /TiVo
You are currently listening to samples.
Listen to over 100 million songs with an unlimited streaming plan.
Listen to this playlist and more than 100 million songs with our unlimited streaming plans.
From £10.83/month
Marius de Vries, Mixer, StudioPersonnel - Andy Bradfield, Mixer, StudioPersonnel - TOM SCHICK, Engineer, StudioPersonnel - Rufus Wainwright, Producer, MainArtist, ComposerLyricist
℗ 2007 Geffen Records
Marius de Vries, Mixer, StudioPersonnel - Andy Bradfield, Mixer, StudioPersonnel - TOM SCHICK, Engineer, StudioPersonnel - Rufus Wainwright, Producer, MainArtist, ComposerLyricist
℗ 2007 Geffen Records
Marius de Vries, Mixer, StudioPersonnel - Andy Bradfield, Mixer, StudioPersonnel - TOM SCHICK, Engineer, StudioPersonnel - Rufus Wainwright, Producer, MainArtist, ComposerLyricist
℗ 2007 Geffen Records
Marius de Vries, Mixer, StudioPersonnel - Andy Bradfield, Mixer, StudioPersonnel - TOM SCHICK, Engineer, StudioPersonnel - Rufus Wainwright, Producer, MainArtist, ComposerLyricist
℗ 2007 Geffen Records
Marius de Vries, Producer, Mixer, Additional Producer, StudioPersonnel - Andy Bradfield, Mixer, StudioPersonnel - TOM SCHICK, Engineer, StudioPersonnel - Rufus Wainwright, Producer, MainArtist, ComposerLyricist
℗ 2007 Geffen Records
Marius de Vries, Mixer, StudioPersonnel - Andy Bradfield, Mixer, StudioPersonnel - TOM SCHICK, Engineer, StudioPersonnel - Rufus Wainwright, Producer, MainArtist, ComposerLyricist
℗ 2007 Geffen Records
Marius de Vries, Mixer, StudioPersonnel - Andy Bradfield, Mixer, StudioPersonnel - TOM SCHICK, Engineer, StudioPersonnel - Rufus Wainwright, Producer, MainArtist, ComposerLyricist
℗ 2007 Geffen Records
Marius de Vries, Mixer, StudioPersonnel - Andy Bradfield, Mixer, StudioPersonnel - TOM SCHICK, Engineer, StudioPersonnel - Rufus Wainwright, Producer, MainArtist, ComposerLyricist
℗ 2007 Geffen Records
Marius de Vries, Mixer, StudioPersonnel - Andy Bradfield, Mixer, StudioPersonnel - TOM SCHICK, Engineer, StudioPersonnel - Rufus Wainwright, Producer, MainArtist, ComposerLyricist
℗ 2007 Geffen Records
Marius de Vries, Mixer, StudioPersonnel - Andy Bradfield, Mixer, StudioPersonnel - TOM SCHICK, Engineer, StudioPersonnel - Rufus Wainwright, Producer, MainArtist, ComposerLyricist
℗ 2007 Geffen Records
Marius de Vries, Mixer, StudioPersonnel - Andy Bradfield, Mixer, StudioPersonnel - TOM SCHICK, Engineer, StudioPersonnel - Rufus Wainwright, Producer, MainArtist, ComposerLyricist
℗ 2007 Geffen Records
Marius de Vries, Mixer, StudioPersonnel - Andy Bradfield, Mixer, StudioPersonnel - TOM SCHICK, Engineer, StudioPersonnel - Rufus Wainwright, Producer, MainArtist
℗ 2007 Geffen Records
Marius de Vries, Mixer, StudioPersonnel - Andy Bradfield, Mixer, StudioPersonnel - TOM SCHICK, Engineer, StudioPersonnel - Rufus Wainwright, Producer, MainArtist, ComposerLyricist
℗ 2007 Geffen Records
Pierre Marchand, Producer - Rufus Wainwright, MainArtist, ComposerLyricist
℗ 2007 Geffen Records
Album review
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 ingénue 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 /TiVo
About the album
- 1 disc(s) - 14 track(s)
- Total length: 01:03:32
- Main artists: Rufus Wainwright
- Composer: Rufus Wainwright
- Label: Geffen
- Genre: Pop/Rock Rock Alternative & Indie
© 2007 Geffen Records ℗ 2007 Geffen Records
Improve album information
Why buy on Qobuz...
-
Stream or download your music
Buy an album or an individual track. Or listen to our entire catalogue with our high-quality unlimited streaming subscriptions.
-
Zero DRM
The downloaded files belong to you, without any usage limit. You can download them as many times as you like.
-
Choose the format best suited for you
Download your purchases in a wide variety of formats (FLAC, ALAC, WAV, AIFF...) depending on your needs.
-
Listen to your purchases on our apps
Download the Qobuz apps for smartphones, tablets and computers, and listen to your purchases wherever you go.