Continuing my look at 2004, first by counting down my own top ten albums of that year.
#4 – Rufus Wainwright – Want Two
Rufus Wainwright’s fourth album was the second part of a project introduced a year earlier with, appropriately, Want One. The first part is an all-timer for me, not just my favorite Wainwright album but possibly cracking my top ten albums by anybody.
Want Two can’t help but pale a bit in comparison, but only a bit. It’s a lush, yearning collection that takes even more chances than its predecessor.
Want Two contains a lot of ambitious and emotional music: album opener ‘Agnus Dei’ is a string-drenched, hyper-passionate Catholic hymn performed in Latin; closer ‘Old Whore’s Diet’ is a 9-minute epic alternating between a capella crooning and Mediterranean dance beats; ‘Little Sister’ is a baroque treat that, stripped of its vocals, would sound like it was written in the early 18th century.
Meet Me In Montauk 