Wainwright packs a 1-2 punch

Rufus Wainwright

“Want Two” (DreamWorks/Geffen)

****

Recorded at the same time as his engrossing 2003 album, “Want One,” the 12 songs in this collection were left off that album because they would have turned that CD into a pricey two-disc set. DreamWorks was having enough trouble selling even one disc by this sophisticated singer-songwriter, who seems equally capable of writing the best and brightest Broadway musical in years or the warmest and most intimate singer-songwriter collection.

So Wainwright apparently packed “Want One” with the most accessible of his new material, later noting the selections that now show up on “Want Two” are the “more daunting tracks, the operatic, weird stuff, some heavy numbers that relate to my classical sensibilities.”

True enough. Don’t, however, be afraid of “Want Two,” which comes with a DVD drawn from a Wainwright concert at San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium. This album is also a glorious musical adventure with Wainwright’s vocals -- sweet and unerringly hopeful -- reaching out so disarmingly that they make you feel at home amid even the most “daunting” of instrumental moments.

Plus, most of the string arrangements are so in tune with Wainwright’s melodies and moods that they offer their own engaging commentaries as he deals, as before, with intensely personal, even obsessive reflections about relationships and self-identity.

On “My Love Affair,” a song about severing ties, the stylish vocalist is joined in the studio by 20 musicians, but he uses the violins, violas and cellos so carefully that you feel as if you are alone with a man and his piano. “Hometown Waltz,” by contrast, is so brightened by the rich shadings of a banjo, accordion and recorder that you can imagine walking the streets of Montreal with Wainwright.

Too honest a writer to hide his gayness behind code words, Wainwright expresses himself in the album’s best moments with a candor and insight that goes far beyond words -- such as “haunting” and “naked” -- usually employed to praise daring singer-songwriters. Demanding and artful, he just may be this generation’s Joni Mitchell.

-- Robert Hilburn

Seeking common ground

Jay-Z and Linkin Park

“MTV Ultimate Mash-Ups Presents Jay-Z/Linkin Park: Collision Course” (Warner Bros./Roc-A-Fella)

** 1/2

Rapper Jay-Z has shown he can rock some, and Linkin Park raps as credibly as most any rock band out there, but are those enough reasons for these two masters of their domains to pool their talents?

Maybe not, but when you add MTV to the formula, things get into motion. The cable channel’s series “MTV Ultimate Mash-Ups” put together the L.A. band and the Brooklyn rapper for a performance at the Roxy in West Hollywood last summer, and now it’s out as a two-disc package: a DVD with that show and footage of their preparations, and a CD of the same songs in studio versions.

This is more a free-flowing interchange than the classic definition of a mash-up -- a record formed from mixing two records together. Some of these tracks involved new instrumental and vocal recording, and sometimes one artist’s song follows the other’s rather than, well, mashing up.

It’s all more fun on the DVD side of the package, especially the Roxy performance, which rides the energy and personality of the players into a loud and undemanding blowout.

The six-cut, 21-minute CD is more problematic, marked by some questionable trade-offs (the mix of Jay-Z’s “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” with Linkin Park’s “Lying From You” loses the former’s spare, Timbaland-produced backing) and a sense of struggle to transcend the gimmicky and find common ground between Jay-Z’s cagey narratives and Linkin Park’s introspective angst.

-- Richard Cromelin

Where there’s never a talent gap

Alison Krauss & Union Station

“Lonely Runs Both Ways”

(Rounder)

***

Earlier this year, Krauss surpassed the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, as the woman with more Grammy Awards -- 17 -- than any other, and odds are she’ll someday add to that total with her first studio album in three years with her longtime collaborators. They’ve always seemed virtually incapable of a lapse in taste, whether in song selection, arrangements or execution, and that continues here.

It’s not spelled out whether the title refers to loneliness touching both partners in a romantic relationship, or suggests that there are positives as well as negatives to solitude. That thematic ambiguity just adds to the richness of songs from Woody Guthrie (an especially trenchant reading of “Pastures of Plenty” with guitarist Dan Tyminski singing lead), Sarah Siskind (an aching farewell, “Goodbye Is All We Have”), bandmate Ron Block (the sublime “A Living Prayer”), and Krauss’ own perky “This Sad Song,” which she wrote with Alison Brown.

The “high, lonesome sound” that defines bluegrass sounds particularly lonesome here, as Krauss’ crystalline voice takes on deeper, darker hues without sacrificing the honesty and vulnerability that have distinguished her work. On occasion the band feels as if it’s slipping into cruise control, but the musical scenery is so gorgeous you really don’t mind going along for the ride.

-- Randy Lewis

Many hands in an ‘Idol’s’ workshop

Fantasia

“Free Yourself” (J)

* 1/2

Fantasia BARRINO is a S-T-A-R. Just look at the third “American Idol” winner on her debut album: come-hither/go-away cover stance, French manicure, glittery get-ups, 50,000-watt smile. Yet Fantasia, 20, is not your average sweet kid chasing a dream -- well, actually, she is, except (some would argue) for being a single mom.

Luckily for the North Carolina-born singer, that wasn’t a factor in the “Idol” balloting. So it’s too bad the only really embarrassing thing here is “Baby Mama,” a sing-along number intended as a positive shout-out to single mothers that’s simply silly dreck.

The collection features such serious guests as Missy Elliott, with writing and producing help from her, Rodney Jerkins and others. These professionals could probably smooth out even nasty ol’ “Idol” judge Simon Cowell’s rough edges, and Fantasia -- who can squeak fetchingly a la Macy Gray but favors a generic, Beyonce-esque coo -- is gifted enough to make standouts of the wistful/bittersweet “Truth Is” and the thumpy/robotic “Selfish.”

Yet too often she sounds like just another cog in the music factory. Fans may enjoy “Summertime” and other numbers associated with her through “Idol,” but these overwrought diva turns bump uncomfortably against the attempts to make her a modern hip-hop soul contender.

-- Natalie Nichols

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent). The albums are already released unless otherwise noted.