“This record is dedicated to me”: Rufus Wainwright’s
Ego Canadian-American singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright comes from a long family tradition of publicly expressing emotion and anxiety through song. While Wainwright does not explicitly continue the pattern established by his mother (folk singer Kate McGarrigle) and father (folk singer Loudon Wainwright III), the majority of his songs use the first-person singular pronoun. In combination with the increasing prominence of his voice in the production of subsequent albums, this adds up to an overblown sense of ego and identity. This exaggerated ego is emphasized by the visual and musical flamboyance of Wainwright’s musical performances and output. Many of his songs contain explicit or indirect references to opera and the classical music tradition, which offers another avenue for drama and excess. His 2009 opera Prima Donna brought his name and music to new audiences, and is revealing (in subject matter and idiom) of his perception of himself as a leading figure in multiple musical styles. In this paper, I will explore my hypothesis that the increasing prominence of Wainwright’s voice in the produced mix through his seven studio albums can be attributed to his ego and his growing comfort with his place in celebrity culture. By combining detailed analysis of his output with the philosophical perspectives of Barthes and Freud, alongside Moore and Dockwray’s work on the ‘sound-box’ and the spatialisation of recorded sound, I will relate Wainwright’s sense of self to his music, providing a new perspective on the role of autobiography in indie rock. |
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