Release the Stars

Release the Stars is the fifth studio album by Canadian-American singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright, released through Geffen Records on May 15, 2007. Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tennant was the executive producer; the album was mixed by Record producer Marius de Vries and Andy Bradfield. Wainwright's most commercially successful album to date, Release the Stars charted in 13 countries, reaching Top 10 positions in Denmark, Norway, and the United Kingdom, and was certified gold in Canada and the UK. The album generated three singles: "Going to a Town", which peaked at number 54 on the UK Singles Chart, "Rules and Regulations", and "Tiergarten".

Wainwright planned to create a more simple piano and voice album originally, but began leaning towards more lush sounds once the recording process started. Guests on Release the Stars include: Richard Thompson, longtime friend and fellow singer-songwriter Teddy Thompson, family members Martha Wainwright and Kate McGarrigle, Neil Tennant, Joan Wasser, and actress Siân Phillips. The world tour supporting the album lasted from May 2007 to February 2008, and included appearances in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Wainwright received two Juno Award nominations for Release the Stars, including Adult Alternative Album of the Year and Songwriter of the Year, and won the Outstanding Music Artist award at the 19th GLAAD Media Awards.

"Initially, this was simply going to be an album of piano and voice", Wainwright stated in a May 2007 interview with The Independent's Nick Duerden. That was, however, until he visited Berlin, which influenced the album's lush sound. Wainwright declared, "Basically, a huge wave of German Romanticism descended on the recording process, and almost drowned me." Wainwright cited two reasons for the change in direction and the heightened dramatic flare: the cancer diagnosis received by his mother (folk musician Kate McGarrigle) during the album's genesis, which he found "fueled his creative intensity in some kind of displaced attempt to get her well", and the New York Metropolitan Opera's commissioning Wainwright to write an opera, making Release the Stars a way of training for such a large project. Revealing the overall theme in January 2007, Wainwright declared the album was about opening up and following impulses. "Whether it's the environment, politics or religious warfare", Wainwright stated in an interview with The Japan Times, "it's time to get out there and be a part of the solution, whatever that is."

For his "incredible take on what popular music means in today's world", Wainwright recruited Neil Tennant to advise him, act as executive producer of the album, and assist with the editing process. Parts of the album were recorded at Second Story and Legacy in New York City, Brooklyn Recording in Brooklyn, Saal 4 in Berlin, and Strongroom and Angel Recording Studios in London. Wainwright had his sister Martha Wainwright, half-sister Lucy Wainwright Roche, and mother Kate McGarrigle appear on the album, along with father and son musicians Richard Thompson and Teddy Thompson. Marius de Vries, who produced both of Wainwright's previous albums (Want One and Want Two), worked on the album, as did longtime band members Jeff Hill, Jack Petruzelli, and Matt Johnson.

"Going to a Town" was released in the United States as a single in digital format on April 3, 2007. The track was later released via digital distribution in the UK on May 7, including "Low Grade Happiness" as a B-side on iTunes. "Going to a Town" entered the UK Singles Chart on May 19, 2007, at number 68. The following week (May 26), the track reached its highest position at number 54. "Going to a Town" lasted on the chart for two weeks in total, and failed to chart in other countries. The music video for the song was directed by Sophie Muller. The video premiered in April 2007, and Logo aired a 20-minute feature on the making of the video on April 27, 2007 (Making the Video: Going to a Town).

The album's second single, "Rules and Regulations", was released digitally in the UK on July 30, 2007. The song failed to chart. Petro Papahadjopoulos directed the music video for "Rules and Regulations", which features a group of men performing a choreographed dance around a long john-wearing Wainwright inside a London mansion.

Released in October 2007, "Tiergarten" was the third single from Release the Stars. A limited edition (500 copies) 12-inch single containing "Supermayer Lost in Tiergarten" was released on October 27. A one-track EP containing the Supermayer remix was released in the UK via iTunes and 7digital on October 29. Both the album version and remix of "Tiergarten" failed to chart.

"Do I Disappoint You", the album's opener, "sees [Wainwright] present a withering defense of his own human frailties, while one orchestral battalion after another mount their attacks and Martha Wainwright summons 'CHAOS!' and 'DESTRUCTION!' like a marauding Fury". "Going to a Town", the album's lead single, was considered by Uncut's John Mulvey to be among the angriest lyrics Wainwright has written, an "indictment of the country of his birth that hinges on the refrain, 'I'm so tired of you America'". The political track, which Wainwright claimed he wrote in just five minutes on the eve of his departure for Berlin, confronts the Bush administration's perceived damage to the U.S. in the form of a love song. It was his discontent with America at the time that lead Wainwright to spend some time recording the album in Berlin. "Tiergarten", named after a large park in Berlin of the same name, is a song about Wainwright's German boyfriend, Jörn Weisbrodt. While recording parts of Release the Stars in Berlin, the couple visited the park often.