Blog Post #6

Rufus Wainwright quite possibly might have the worst website managers in the history of website managers. My second paper in this class analyzed Rufus’s song “Hallelujah”, and how the beauty of the lyrics within it in contrast to the desperation and loneliness portrayed on the cover. I had a lot of respect for Rufus after seeing the depth of the correlations between the song and the cover art. It seemed that he really felt a connection to the song when he was playing it, and that he wanted to show the world what it really meant, regardless of whether or not they wanted to hear it. He wanted to show the true meaning, and he seemed to not care what society thought about the religious theme of the song. After learning all of this through writing my paper, I figured that this Blog post would be the perfect way to follow up on how awesome Rufus really was. I could show the world that he wasn’t an ordinary guy, he was a clandestine religious promoter, so sneaky that nobody noticed the Biblical stories that he was streaming through their headsets. How wrong I was. Upon looking up his official website (http://www.rufuswainwright.com/) I had the first thought that he might have just figured that “Hallelujah” was a good song to do a cover of. He might have never cared at all. The first thing that greets you on this webpage is a huge boy-band pop style photo of Rufus with his hair slicked back, and his girlish face trying it’s best to give a tough-guy look. In big, bold, girly letters, a banner flashes “RUFUS MERCH” three times as if we didn’t get it the first two, and right underneath it is a whole section of when his concert tickets come on sale and when his next album can be purchased. RUFUS! WHAT HAPPENED TO BEING SLY? What happened to slightly alluding to certain things and making us think instead of coming out and saying things over and over and over again? “Hallelujah” was a song that induced cerebral function, this website induces seizure. Everything about it screams “I am a website that caters strictly to the female consumer. I want you to buy my merchandise, and coerce other female consumers into buying it as well”. From the feminine text, to the flowery patterns in the top right corner and in the backdrop of some text boxes, this whole website ignores the fact that a guy might like piano. The only upside to this page is that I (and anyone else for that matter) can be sure that the information on it is accurate, considering the fact that it’s sponsored by his record label.