Want One

1	Oh What a World 4:23
2	I Don't Know What It Is 4:51
3	Vicious World 2:50
4	Movies of Myself 4:31
5	Pretty Things 2:40
6	Go or Go Ahead 6:39
7	Vibrate 2:44
8	14th Street 4:44
9	Natasha 3:29
10	Harvester of Hearts 3:35
11	Beautiful Child 4:16
12	Want 5:11
13	11:11 4:27
14	Dinner at Eight 4:33

Barnes & Noble

In interviews, singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright has been exceptionally honest about his problems with addiction and family strife, particularly his volatile relationship with his singer-songwriter father, Loudon Wainwright III. The younger Wainwright's songs are unusually honest, too, though it's not just in the lyrics that he lays bare his soul. He adheres to the centuries-old notion that the music must add meaning to a song's words -- which isn't so surprising coming from someone who claims Schubert and Verdi as his musical idols. Aided by veteran producer Marius deVries, Want One takes the opulent arrangements of Wainwright's first two albums (Rufus Wainwright and Poses) a step further, underscoring the emotional richness and inherent theatricality of these confessional songs. The results are often surprising. Originally conceived as "an angry rock thing," "Vicious World" becomes a deliriously hazy dream (or nightmare?) with gently throbbing keyboard harmonies. "14th Street" is built around the down-to-earth, country-esque refrain, "Why'd you have to break all my heart? / Couldn't you have saved a little bit of it?," yet the music is an unexpectedly elaborate honky-tonk symphony. Not all the songs are so lavishly realized, though. "So Pretty" is an intimate number with piano accompaniment, and "Harvester of Hearts" evokes the low-lit atmosphere of a smoky jazz club. Wainwright's struggles with big issues have always been plain in his music, and though he looks to be on the path to recovery, it's the listener who reaps the biggest bounty: Rufus's poignant, often powerful songs offer themes and melodies that burrow deep into one's consciousness. Andrew Farach-Colton

All Music Guide

Rufus Wainwright croons and cries through another set of obscenely lush and opulent pop operettas on his third album Want One. As is to be expected, the songs are meticulously layered and richly textured, with full orchestral passages and many-throated harmonies. Producer Marius deVries (Björk, Massive Attack, Madonna) didn't mess with the already successful Wainwright sound, allowing for the young singer/ songwriter/multi-instrumentalist to explore his familiar themes of love, loss, and "singin' about places" with the anticipated fanfare and flourish. The album's strongest segment comes in the middle, beginning with the intimate-to-epic "Go or Go Ahead," barreling through the wildly spinning rock opera "14th Street," and landing softly on the gently chiming "Natasha." Oddly, unlike his previous two releases, Wainwright's musings seem less focused and a little meandering on a handful of the songs. The lazy, loping "Want" is much more stream-of-consciousness than anything else he's recorded, and the slightly goofy "Vibrate" (with its references to Britney Spears and electroclash) may sound dated before the album is played a second time. The sessions that produced Want One were apparently so prolific that another volume (Want Two?) is in the works, but it could turn out to be that distilling both albums down to one would have made for a more complete overall work. Who knows, this new looseness to his rigid pop constructivism may end up being a good thing, and, frankly, Wainwright could be singing lists of names out of the phone book and it would still be more exciting and inventive than 99 percent of the other albums out there. Zac Johnson

Rolling Stone

A record of breathtaking, eccentric opulence. David Fricke

Entertainment Weekly

If Sondheim had been reared on old Van Dyke Parks records, he might sound like this. (A-) Marc Weingarten