Off the Charts: Rufus Wainwright

He's gay, but girls love him anyway

By Newt Briggs

Rufus Wainwright is a 27-year-old pop icon who happens to be gay--not that there's anything wrong with that. Quite the opposite, Wainwright wears his sexuality so well that he's become a cross-gender sex symbol (kind of like Rob Halford with a full head of hair and a penchant for German cabaret). On top of that, Wainwright has given pop an indispensable injection of queer-eye flair, quickly becoming a must-see stage maven in an age of assembly-line industry celebs.

TARGET AUDIENCE: Audiophiles who think Tin Pan Alley is due for a comeback and anyone who can watch the Moulin Rouge DVD without fast forwarding to the Elton John and Sting songs.

ROCK-CRITIC SPEAK: With the songwriting knack of Jackson Browne and the melodic savvy of a pre-Smiley Smile Brian Wilson, Rufus Wainwright introduces the plush parlor-pop of Gilbert and Sullivan into the digital age.

FAMILY VALUES: A musical prodigy from the moment of conception, Rufus is the genetic byproduct of coffeehouse crooners Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III. Always more popular in England than the U.S., the senior Wainwright scored a novelty hit with 1972's "Dead Skunk," but his funniest song (at least in hindsight) had to be "Rufus Is a Tit Man"--a jealous lament about his baby boy's zeal for breast feeding.

DID IT BETTER: Norah Jones. The daughter of Beatles guru and sitar master Ravi Shankar, Jones won eight Grammys with and sold more than 18 million copies of 2002's Come With Me. In case anyone's counting, that's 17.9 million more copies than were sold of Shankar's Raga Parameshwari.

DID IT WORSE: Jakob Dylan. Jakob's father Bob was the freewheeling troubadour of an entire generation. Jakob was not (see: The Wallflowers' "Angel on My Bike").

DID IT WORST: Sean Lennon. Although his father was one of the most influential songwriters of the 20th century, Sean never found his compositional niche. In fact, listening to the younger Lennon's electro-pop blundering is a bit like watching cosmetics tested on a bunny rabbit. Sure, we are better for the knowledge, but do the ends really justify the means?

HEADLINE NEWS: After bewitching the New York Times with tales of crystal meth, ketamine and back-alley homoeroticism, Wainwright inspired the headline: "Rufus Wainwright Journeys to `Gay Hell' and Back."

LYRICALLY SPEAKING: From "Vibrate": "My phone's on vibrate for you/ Electroclash is karaoke, too/ I try to dance to Britney Spears/ I guess I'm getting on in years."

BLOWN COVER: Presumably, the sword and plate mail on the cover of 2003's Want One are intended to suggest that Wainwright is a Renaissance man, but his knightly accoutrements really just make him look like an overstyled Don Quixote.

IF RUFUS WAINWRIGHT WERE A 19th CENTURY BRITISH PLAYWRIGHT, HE'D BE: Oscar Wilde.

QUOTH THE RUFUS: "I don't want to look to the past and romanticize it," Wainwright told Puncture magazine, "but gay men used to be a bastion of cultural refinement. Not that you have to dress up in little scarves or even go to the opera necessarily, but I feel we're losing that culture."

QUOTH THE RUFUS 2.0: To the New York Times: "On [speed] I had really horrible thoughts that turned me on. I had a few of those real gay lost weekends, where everything goes out the window, where you want to make pornos or you want to have sex with children. I mean, your mind is just completely ravaged."