Promotion
Wainwright acknowledged that his debut album was "not a single driven album"; no singles were released from Rufus Wainwright. To promote the album, a music video was produced for the song "April Fools". Directed by Sophie Muller, the video features Wainwright in Los Angeles "amidst a clique of classic opera characters" such as Madame Butterfly, attempting to prevent each of them from committing suicide. However, in each instance he arrives too late. The video also contains cameo appearances by No Doubt's Gwen Stefani, a friend of Muller's, and Hole bassist Melissa Auf der Maur, a high school acquaintance and former roommate of Wainwright's. Part of the video was filmed in Stefani's house.
Wainwright performed "Beauty Mark" on Today, the American morning news and talk show. He also taped an episode of MTV's television program 120 Minutes to promote the album, which aired on March 28, 1999. An advertisement in Billboard promoting the album also referred to appearances on CBS News Sunday Morning, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Late Show with David Letterman, and Sessions at West 54th.
In the year prior to the album's release, Wainwright opened for artists such as Barenaked Ladies and Sean Lennon. On March 1, 1999, Wainwright began his first tour as a headlining act in Hoboken, New Jersey. During that month, Wainwright toured throughout New England and the mid-Atlantic states, Ontario (Ottawa and Toronto), Quebec (Montreal), the Southern United States (Nashville and Atlanta), and midwestern United States (Cincinnati, Chicago, and Pontiac). Wainwright continued to tour throughout the month of April before heading to Europe. Stops were mostly along the West Coast, including four in California, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle. Three concerts were also held in Canada, including Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary.
Read more about this topic: Rufus Wainwright (album)
Famous quotes containing the word promotion:
“Parents can fail to cheer your successes as wildly as you expected, pointing out that you are sharing your Nobel Prize with a couple of other people, or that your Oscar was for supporting actress, not really for a starring role. More subtly, they can cheer your successes too wildly, forcing you into the awkward realization that your achievement of merely graduating or getting the promotion did not warrant the fireworks and brass band.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“I am asked if I would not be gratified if my friends would procure me promotion to a brigadier-generalship. My feeling is that I would rather be one of the good colonels than one of the poor generals. The colonel of a regiment has one of the most agreeable positions in the service, and one of the most useful. “A good colonel makes a good regiment,” is an axiom.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)