Rufus Wainwright - Rufus! Rufus! Rufus! Does Judy! Judy! Judy! DVD

Rufus Wainwright tells the story midway through this show about how dad Loudon Wainwright III grew up as friends with Liza Minelli and fell in love with her (though it was unreciprocated), having spent many happy childhood days at the house of her mum Judy Garland. This is a story that Loudon himself told at the Bridgewater Hall earlier this year, so it's not an entirely surprising anecdote, but still quite an interesting one in the context of this DVD. Anyway, as you may well know, Rufus! Rufus! Rufus! Does Judy! Judy! Judy! is the annoyingly-titled release of Wainwright's revival of Judy Garland's famous 1961 Live At Carnegie Hall concert, recorded (curiously) at the London Palladium. It's a sign of how ludicrously talented young Rufus is that when he announced that he was going to do this revival, no-one really seemed to think it was a bad idea. Sure, Garland is the prototype gay icon, and Wainwright is of course gay (it's no surprise to see both Sir Ian McKellen and Neil Tennant in the crowd here) but still it can be risky for someone to indulge in this kind of whim. Arguably, Robbie Williams' career has never quite regained the momentum it lost when he decided to stop being the country's biggest pop star and trying to be Frank Sinatra, but of course there is a slight difference in talent between these two starstruck stars, so there was never really any doubt that Rufus would pull it off with style. And he certainly does that. Recreating, almost note-for-note, the legendary Garland show, he is backed by a fine swing orchestra and is in excellent vocal form, camping it up and vamping it up when necessary, but really living the more emotional and reflective moments. The list of great songs performed here is incredible, from the obvious Somewhere Over The Rainbow to classics like That's Entertainment, Get Happy, Stormy Weather, Everytime We Say Goodbye and Stormy Weather, and Wainwright does them all more than justice, helped out by mum Kate McGarrigle and sister Martha at times, only adding to the awesomeness (yes, it's a word) of the whole thing. And while it is certainly unashamedly gay in tone and Wainwright does go OTT at times, it's by no means just for a homosexual audience, because both he and Garland should be enjoyed by everyone and it goes without saying that this is an essential purchase for his fans, not least because it's such a unique show by him, without any of his own material whatsoever. However, when you're watching it, that's sometimes hard to notice, because he is so obviously influenced by this kind of music and while he uses more traditional rock musicians rather than a big band, this is all hardly a quantum leap from what you'd expect from a Rufus Wainwright gig, apart from the fact that it's obviously a very, very special one...

Remi Nicole - My Conscience & I

Remi Nicole has released some alright singles, so we were quite looking forward to her debut album, but sometimes things are best enjoyed in very small doses. In singles, she sounded like a refreshing alternative to the likes of Lily Allen and Kate Nash, but across an album it's actually hard to distinguish between them, other than that Nicole uses guitars a lot more prominently than either of the other two. And that's a shame, because coming third in terms of releasing her album means that what sounded fresh and interesting when Allen did it, and a little old when Nash did it, only comes across as a bit stale and forced now. She's still got some cracking tracks though, like recent single Rock 'n' Roll, where she explains why she prefers guitar music to hip-hop and R'n'B despite coming from a mixed-race background. It's got a great chorus and comes across like a MySpace generation version of I Love Rock 'n' Roll, and most importantly the lyrics come quite naturally, whereas on other tracks they are rather more irritating. The 'best' example of this is New Old Days, which is the trademark 'wasn't it ace when we were kids?' track that so many artists love to do, and this one is basically just I Love The 80s put to music, reeling off names and references like Timmy Mallett, Pat Sharp and nafnaf jackets with a sepia-toned nostalgia. Unfortunately, it doesn't mean anything at all, other than that Nicole was born in the 1980s and quite liked being young. Me too, but I've never felt compelled to write a lazy song about it. It's at this stage that you realise that Remi Nicole doesn't actually have anything interesting to say about anything, with her lyrics basically sounding like someone's blog entries about their lives, moaning about stuff (Fed Up, Inside Of Me), or discussing men they don't like (Na Nighty, Dates From Hell). The musical backing these lyrics get isn't too bad, but the sheer inanity of lines like "Inside of me is a Bonnie And Clyde, driving through my mind. It's a love-hate relationship I cannot hide, my conscience & I" means that even Burt Bacharach would struggle to make it sound good. If Lily Allen and Kate Nash hadn't beaten her to it, Nicole might have sounded better than she does, but as it is, My Conscience & I just isn't good enough to compete with either of them.

CunninLynguists - Dirty Acres

If the early 90s saw hip-hop from the East and West coasts dominating (when they weren't shooting at each other), this decade has seen the rise and rise of Southern hip-hop, with Outkast, Cee-Lo, The Neptunes and CunninLynguists all making rap music that lacked the nihilistic lack of values of the likes of Dre and Snoop. CunninLynguists, despite the awful pun in their name, certainly fit in with Outkast in the category of 'hip-hip with brains', even if they lack the technicolour imagination that makes Andre and Big Boi stand out. It marks a quick return from the trio after last year's 'Adam and Eve' concept album A Piece of Strange and it follows the same more mature direction that they started to take up, and that's very welcome. After sombre and quiet opening track Never, Valley Of Death and Dirty Acres set the tone for reflective raps with political and social themes, building up to K.K.K.Y. and its tales of life in Kentucky (KY, get it?). So far so good, but things lose their way in the middle of Dirty Acres as CunninLynguists forget their sociological messages and get down to some lovin' with Wonderful, complete with that irritating Pinky & Perky/Akon vocal effect. Yellow Lines continues down the same misguided path while The Park (Fresh Air) sounds unnervingly like a slick Fun Lovin' Criminals track, which is surely not what was intended. The desolate Summer's Gone picks things up again and from there on in, Dirty Acres recovers its swagger and quality with tracks like Gun and the awesome Things I Dream, so it's just a shame that it sagged so badly in the middle.