'Everything I like is a little bit stronger, a little bit thicker, a little bit harmful for me." So croons Rufus Wainwright on "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk," the opening cut from his new album, "Poses."
Only a young man whose profession requires him to plumb his own depths would talk about his appetites in such an offhanded way. With his colorful pedigree and offbeat musical influences (Porter, Schubert, Callas), Wainwright already has a head start in the meaningful-subtext department, and that's not even counting the gay Chelsea thing, which, political correctness notwithstanding, is as central to his still-developing oeuvre as his "fetching red leather jacket" is to his self-image.
Though success hasn't gone to Wainwright's head, it's definitely made him more aware of what he can get away with, and what often seemed like reluctant attitudinizing on his debut, comes off here as a fully formed pop sensibility. The languorous vocal style that characterized "Rufus Wainwright" has been institutionalized on "Poses," lending even a funky song like "Shadows" the atmosphere of a dissipated Sunday afternoon spent in the company of the model he met the night before in "California" ("so much to plunder"). He's even gotten up the nerve to dip into the family cookie jar, reeling off a straightforward folk version of his father's 1984 song "One Man Guy," which is not a gay double-entendre, though I'd like to think that Rufus wants us to think it is. And if subtext is all you're looking for, he shares the vocal and instrumental chores on that one with sister Martha and guitarist Teddy Thompson, another product of a famous folk-rock couple (Richard and Linda Thompson) that split when he was just a kid.