Rufus Wainwright

House of Rufus UMC****

Before releasing his new album, young Rufus decided to tidy up some loose ends pertaining to his back catalogue. Most acts would throw out a hits collection, a rarities compilation or a special-edition album with a few demos and B-sides on a bonus disc. Wainwright has gone totally overboard with this ginormous box set of 13 CDs and six DVDs, as extravagant as the singer himself.

You can only admire the hubris (okay, he’s an important artist, but he’s not Dylan). Working through it you can feel early on that there is just too much sensory overload (it seems like every single note Wainright has ever played is on here somewhere), but there is magnificent stuff here, from a delightfully unorthodox and consistently engaging performer.

Wainwright’s great tenor voice is the way in here, followed swiftly by his main lyrical concerns – love, life, addiction, family and beyond. His great strength as a songwriter has always been how he melds the highest of high art (opera, etc) with scuzzy and dirty low art. You can never confidently fix your sights on Wainwright as an artist – he’s moved on before you ever have time to catch up.

The six studio albums you’ll probably be already familiar with, but here they all contain previously unreleased bonus material, and the quality varies.

The two live concert discs – Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall(one of the best titles ever) and Milwaukee at Last– are already available, so the real interest lies in the four discs of new (ie previously unreleased) material. One of CDs features the demos that got him his first label deal; another features collaborations with names as various as Leonard Cohen, The Pet Shop Boys and Burt Bacharach.

The bottom line here is the price: depending where and how you shop you’re looking at spending around €170. It’s a very tall ask, but this has obviously been done up to appeal to the mega-fan/ completist. The packaging is sumptuous and the extras are very well produced.

But here’s an idea, young Rufus: why not release those all-important four new discs as a stand-alone product at a price your loving fan base won’t baulk at? See rufuswainwright. com

Download tracks: Anything from the Rufus Raritiesor the Rufus Demosdiscs