“In my humble opinion Want One and Want Two are Wainwright’s crowning achievement (so far), at least in the field of popular music. He’s also written the opera Prima Donna and set Shakespeare sonnets to music. But at the time, the two Wants were a leap ahead from his first two albums and declared Wainwright to be quite like any other artist of the time. . Not that this kind of opulent pop-operatic vignettes of life, love and art galleries saw him bother the top 40 charts, but it garnered a loyal following. I was one, and have seen Rufus in concert three times over the years, the first after the Want Two release, then again after Release the Stars and also for his Judy Garland tribute concert at the London Palladium. . The album is a veritable who’s who of North American indie pop in 2004, featuring Ahnoni, Joan as Policewoman, his mother Kate McGarrigle and aunt Anna, Teddy Thompson and his sister Martha Wainwright of course. Levon Helm of The Band turns up on drums on one track as does the actor Gina Gershon on Jew’s Harp. . The lyrics are introspective and touch on his relationships: with people and with drugs and the media, but the arrangements are lovingly and lushly orchestrated. Mini-operas they’ve often been described as in the music press, but I think this belies their understanding of opera and tells us more about the normally narrow format of ‘pop’ music. Rufus has always ploughed his own furrow and nowhere is this more evident than on these two albums. Of the two, I think my preference is (slightly) Want One, but Two is not a collection of studio castoffs or would-be B-sides, there are many riches here...” . FOR FULL REVIEW & PLAYLIST CLICK LINK IN PROFILE: . #rufuswainwright @rufuswainwright #wanttwo #gaymessiah #agnusdei #theartteacher #mariusdevries #canadianmusic #chamberpop #popopera #cdreview #recordcollection #nowplaying #nowlistening #randomrecordreview https://www.instagram.com/p/B4RvRL4p9VZ/?igshid=ijpgwxq7bfgf