5. Rufus Wainwright - Release The StarsThough this album is often dramatically overproduced and weighed by down by unnecessary flute solos, any true Rufus lover would tell you that there is no such thing as a dramatically overproduced flute solo when Wainwright’s grand emotions are at stake. As the album’s completely unhinged, operatic opener, “Do I Disappoint You?” (ha!), rhetorically asks: “Why does it always have to be chaos?” Well, dear reader, it has to be chaos to allow for contrasting songs as elegant and refined as “Nobody’s off the hook” and “Going to a Town” (a gorgeous Goodbye-New York-Hello-Berlin track, the lame video for which is here), as it also has to be chaotic to make authoritative astronomical commands like in the jubilant album closer “Release the Stars”, the song that launched a million trillion slowly sparkling disco balls.
(Ed. Note: Also, it has to be said that a choreographed dance in Garland-drag to Judy’s “Get Happy” (Youtube helps) might get you more devotion from this writer than is officially allowable by the rock journalist union.)
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