MUSIC
section by: Jeb Delia
ALL DAYS ARE NIGHTS: SONGS FOR LULU
Rufus Wainwright
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Being willing to compose and perform a song cycle that blends Shakespeare with a silent movie goddess doesn’t make you a genius– it might just make you Robyn Hitchcock without the jokes– but it doesn’t mean you’re not one, either, and to the extent that “genius” is defined in terms of characteristics that are wholly unique to an artist, then Wainwright’s closer than many. He has some of Randy Newman’s genius for piano accompaniment that ideally puncutates his idiosyncratic singing style. I don’t know if the stage production of this piece includes any more instrumentation, but it would be hard to imagine it matching the emotional directness of the album. Even his dad will be hard-pressed to top this one this year.
COUNTRY MUSIC
Willie Nelson
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Willie grabs the band from the Alison Krauss/Robert Plant Raising Sand album, including the omnipresent T-Bone Burnett, and shows the kids how it’s done: he gets old-timey with “Satisfied Mind,: Louvin-style spooky on “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down;” he wallows in self-pity like nobody’s business on “Ocean of Diamonds” and “Man With the Blues,” plus finds time to tap the odd toe with “Freight Train Boogie” and “Pistol Packin’ Mama.” The deliberately generic album title is a bit too faux-humble (and a tad misleading for anyone who’s idea of country music is anything that’s ever been heard on American Idol). For Nelson fans, it’s at least the third outstanding album he has released in the past year and a half. For others– if you like a bit of roots music, but have always had trouble getting past the 80’s Nashville glitz that seemed to coat Nelson like paint for the past couple of decades, this would be a great place to get to know one of the greatest living American singers.
TRUE LOVE CAST OUT ALL EVIL 
Roky Erickson and Okkervil River
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It would be awfully easy to give this album a free pass simply because, after all these hard years, Erickson’s earned it and more. And there are times when you suspect that Will Sheff’s Okkervil River are playing the primitive just a little too cleverly (the occasional use of Erickson’s actual hospital recordings doesn’t seem to make any point that Erickson’s singing doesn’t on it own). But song after song, Erickson’s emotional directness cuts through any attempt to over-indulge his pain. There’s a bit of the electric charge of “You’re Gonna Miss Me” on “Bring Back The Past” and “John Lawman,” but it’s mostly a lo-fi country-tinged affair, framing the harrowing story of one of the few rockers who wouldn’t be embarrassed by such a heartfelt album title.
CHARLEMAGNE: BY THE SWORD & THE CROSS 
Marco Sabiu with Christopher Lee
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Go ahead, laugh at the concept of the 87-year-old Count Dooku handling lead vocals on a “symphonic heavy-metal concept album” about the legendary Christian king. But bless him, Lee jumps in with both feet, and turns the Father of Modern Europe into Saruman. It says here that there are “two metal bands, plus a 100-piece orchestra under the direction of composer Marco Sabiu,” but with its washes of organ, dee-dee-deedling guitar solos and blocks of sonic thunder, it all sounds like Spinal Tap to me—and, as with Tap, what makes it irresistible is the sincerely straight faces with which it’s all put together and performed. The album even comes with confirmation “from the
Other noteworthy 4/20 music releases:
Sweet Apple: Love & Desperation. Mascis and company deliver hook-laden thump, riffs that will lodge in your spinal column, while singer John Petkovic works out his pain with arena-rock singalong choruses, sometimes teetering right on the edge of Bad Company. But if there’s a point to the Roxy Music “homage”, it eluded me.
Apples in Stereo: Travellers in Space & Time. I realize that duplicating the success of New Magnetic Wonder was going to be difficult, but if it’d been me, my first move would not have been to up the Jeff Lynne quotient, at the expense of Brian Wilson or Ray Davies. There’s maybe 85% as much hookiness as last time, but that’s still well ahead of most anything else you’ll hear this week.
Caribou: Swim I gotta love the idea of an electropop math Ph.D willing to go toe to toe with Handsome Dick Manitoba, even if he lost. Dunno whether this will duplicate the prestige and prizes that were lavished on
Sevendust: Cold Day Memory. Says here this is their first album with the original Sevendust lineup in almost eight years. Also says it is their “most well-received” ever. Which means they don’t need any comment from me.
Armin Van Buuren: A State of
Merle Haggard: I Am What I Am. I haven’t heard what must be about Hag’s 437th album yet, but don’t be surprised if it turns out that Willie only has the second-best country album released this week.
Glee: The Music, The Power of Madonna. Presented as a public service, since anyone who would even listen to this album already knows much more about it than I do.
Kate Nash: My Best Friend Is You. I haven’t been much into one-man-studio-bands since Todd Rundgren… but Nash is a woman, so that’s OK. My prediction: just as poppy as her last album, twice as cheeky.
Aqualung: Magnetic North. Someone once called this guy “Badly Drawn Brian Wilson;” not completely accurate, but not that far off…
Radio Department: Clinging To A Scheme. These guys take their sweet time between releases (four years this time), but I’m guessing it’ll pay off as well as the last one did.