Vibrate: Rufus Wainwright

Rufus Wainwright - Vibrate: The Best of Rufus Wainwright (2014) {Interscope 3765155 rec 1998-2014}
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© 2014 Interscope Records / Geffen / DGC | 3765155
Pop / Rock / Baroque Pop / Chamber Pop / Adult Alternative Pop

The 2014 compilation Vibrate: The Best of Rufus Wainwright brings together many of the singer/songwriter's best cuts, as chosen by him, from his various studio albums. Included here are songs off his 1998 self-titled debut all the way through to his 2012 album, Out of the Game. Also included are several cuts Wainwright recorded for the 2001 soundtrack to Shrek. That said, missing here are cuts off his intimate 2007 album All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu, as are any tracks from his several concert albums, most notably his 2007 Judy Garland-themed performance Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall. Perhaps Wainwright viewed All Days Are Nights, which was recorded during his mother Kate McGarrigle's illness with cancer, as too much of a personal statement to single out any of its tracks for inclusion here.

With a title like Vibrate, it would seem that the Manhattan Transfer had filled their first studio disc in four years with jazzy and exciting vocal workouts intended to shake the speakers. But the title is a bit misleading as Vibrate is one of their most subdued and elegant recordings, and one that harks back to the days of Mecca for Moderns where pop tangents were part of their repertoire.

"Each of the pieces in this programme is like an ephemeral castle that I can take refuge in when I feel like it," says Sébastien Llinares. Here, the French guitarist, who stands at the crossroads of classical, jazz and contemporary music and also produces the programme Guitare, guitares on France Musique, puts his playing at the service of every kind of music. Jimi Hendrix's Castles Made Of Sand was the inspiration for this programme; Sébastien Llinares hears in it the unchanging open string that the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos so often used. His journey continues with tributes to famous songs by Bernstein, Gershwin and Rodgers & Hart, an evocation of Rufus Wainwright and Baden Powell in the forms of the Habanera and Bossa Nova — not forgetting a tribute to Django by John Lewis as well as Leonard Cohen's eternal Hallelujah, which takes on the air of an ancient canario when played on the classical guitar. Two bagatelles and an impromptu composed by Llinares himself complete the family portrait.

"Each of the pieces in this programme is like an ephemeral castle that I can take refuge in when I feel like it," says Sébastien Llinares. Here, the French guitarist, who stands at the crossroads of classical, jazz and contemporary music and also produces the programme Guitare, guitares on France Musique, puts his playing at the service of every kind of music. Jimi Hendrix's Castles Made Of Sand was the inspiration for this programme; Sébastien Llinares hears in it the unchanging open string that the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos so often used. His journey continues with tributes to famous songs by Bernstein, Gershwin and Rodgers & Hart, an evocation of Rufus Wainwright and Baden Powell in the forms of the Habanera and Bossa Nova — not forgetting a tribute to Django by John Lewis as well as Leonard Cohen's eternal Hallelujah, which takes on the air of an ancient canario when played on the classical guitar. Two bagatelles and an impromptu composed by Llinares himself complete the family portrait.