Rufus Wainwright – Want One
It’s funny, this list, I’ve actually met a lot of the people I’ve chosen! Rufus came on tour with us in 2003, it was the first time we’d got on a tour bus and the first iPods had come out. Tim had an iPod, and I checked it out, I put it on and the album he had on there was Want One and I was completely blown away. He sounds a bit like Radiohead-does-classical, particularly on that record. I remember saying to him that he sounds a lot like Radiohead and he was a bit like, “Really?”, I don’t think he even knew their music. That album was written, I think, during the time he got clean from being really addicted to crystal meth. I mean it sent him blind and stuff, it was really serious. So the album tells that story, with just beautiful songwriting, and I don’t know if he ever got close to that album again in terms of song-writing, it’s such a phenomenal record. And I like orchestral arrangements if they’re done well, or else it can sound like Il Divo or something but he did it so well, mixing pop and classical.