Like John Mayer, Rufus Wainwright released a “comeback” album this year inspired by pop songwriters of the 1970s. In Wainwright’s case, the influences are more Elton John and David Bowie than Neil Young and Joni Mitchell — more glam-rock than folk-rock.

And Wainwright isn’t coming back from a creative slump but a personal one: the death of his mother in 2010, shortly after the release of his sixth studio album, All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu. That record was written while she was hospitalized, with several songs referencing her impending demise, and it’s a stark, sometimes difficult listen.

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