Out of the Game

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Editorial Reviews

All Music Guide - Matt Collar
Rufus Wainwright's 2012 studio effort, Out of the Game, is a '70s singer/songwriter album with some soft rock and disco and elements that bring to mind a mix of Boz Scaggs, ELO, and Todd Rundgren. Produced by Mark Ronson, the master of making retro new again, Out of the Game has a vintage, organic aesthetic featuring horns, old-school keyboards, strings, and the occasional fuzzed-out guitar. In that sense, it is a return to the more straightforward pop/rock style of Wainwright's early albums, although some of the opera and classical influences of 2007's Release the Stars are still evident. Similarly, the stark personal style Wainwright investigated on 2010's All Days Are ...
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Editorial Reviews

All Music Guide - Matt Collar
Rufus Wainwright's 2012 studio effort, Out of the Game, is a '70s singer/songwriter album with some soft rock and disco and elements that bring to mind a mix of Boz Scaggs, ELO, and Todd Rundgren. Produced by Mark Ronson, the master of making retro new again, Out of the Game has a vintage, organic aesthetic featuring horns, old-school keyboards, strings, and the occasional fuzzed-out guitar. In that sense, it is a return to the more straightforward pop/rock style of Wainwright's early albums, although some of the opera and classical influences of 2007's Release the Stars are still evident. Similarly, the stark personal style Wainwright investigated on 2010's All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu is also still here, albeit in a much more pop-friendly and melodically palatable form. Wainwright, who has always been a deeply intimate songwriter (he confronted his crystal meth addiction and recovery from it on 2003's Want One, dealt directly with the death of his mother, Kate McGarrigle, on Lulu, and has never shied away from addressing his homosexuality), here details his life since becoming engaged to his partner in 2010 and fathering a child in 2011 with Lorca Cohen (Leonard Cohen's daughter) on the impressionistic "Montauk." In the song, Wainwright croons to his future adult daughter, "One day you will come to Montauk and see your dad wearing a kimono and see your other dad pruning roses/Hope you won't turn around and go." Later in the song, he summons the ghost of his mother with the line, "One day years ago years ago in Montauk lived a woman now a shadow/There she does wait for us in the ocean." It's a terribly bittersweet moment and a kind of apotheosis of all the events that inform the mood on Out of the Game. As moving as that song is, Wainwright and Ronson balance out the more introspective songs with such immediately engaging cuts as the Rundgren-esque soft rock title track anthem, the soulful baroque pop of "Jericho," and the T. Rex-meets-'60s girl group-sounding ballad "Rashida." Elsewhere, "Barbara," "Bitter Tears," and the languid "Song of You" evince a kind of Giorgio Moroder Europop vibe and also compare favorably to works by such similarly inclined Wainwright contemporaries as Ron Sexsmith and Richard Hawley. Although Wainwright's private life may have taken him out of the pop game for a time, this album is one of his most classicist, not classical, pop records and in that sense, Out of the Game is definitely a winner.
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  • Out of the Game
    Out of the Game  

Product Details

  • Release Date: 5/1/2012
  • Label: Decca U.S.
  • UPC: 602527943206
  • Catalog Number: 001658002
  • Sales rank: 11,685

Tracks

Disc 1
  1. 1 Out of the Game (4:05)
  2. 2 Jericho (3:43)
  3. 3 Rashida (3:00)
  4. 4 Barbara (3:55)
  5. 5 Welcome to the Ball (3:26)
  6. 6 Montauk (3:56)
  7. 7 Bitter Tears (3:31)
  8. 8 Respectable Dive (4:55)
  9. 9 Perfect Man (3:58)
  10. 10 Sometimes You Need (3:20)
  11. 11 Song of You (4:50)
  12. 12 Candles (7:41)
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Album Credits

Performance Credits
Rufus Wainwright Primary Artist, Synthesizer, Acoustic Guitar, Piano, Vocals
Loudon Wainwright III Background Vocals
Nels Cline Electric Guitar
Anna McGarrigle Accordion
Jenni Muldaur Background Vocals
Chaim Tannenbaum Background Vocals
Sean Lennon Acoustic Guitar
Martha Wainwright Background Vocals
Michael Leonhart Trumpet, Cornet, Flugelhorn, Mellowphone
Sloan Wainwright Background Vocals
Victor Axelrod Organ, Synthesizer, Piano
Angee Blake Background Vocals
David Budge Drums
Anthony Rossomando Guitar
Andrew Wyatt Background Vocals
Thomas Bartlett Organ, Synthesizer, Piano, fender rhodes
Stuart Bogie Tenor Saxophone
Mark Ronson Bass
Ian Hendrickson-Smith Baritone Saxophone
Nick Movshon Bass, Percussion, Drums
Homer Steinweiss Drums
Rose Elinor Dougall Background Vocals
Lucy Roche Background Vocals
Thomas Brenneck Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Ukulele
Nick Zinner Electric Guitar
Kevin Keys Background Vocals
Charysse Blackman Background Vocals
Technical Credits
Ted Jensen Mastering
Rufus Wainwright Composer
Julian Peploe Art Direction
Vaughan Merrick Engineer, Pro-Tools
Rutger Groomer
Mark Ronson Producer, drum programming
Al O'Connell Engineer, Vocal Engineer
Joshua Blair Drum Engineering
Ben Baptie Engineer
Cheri Keating Groomer
Alala Engineer
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