Whatever Rufus Wainwright‘s flights of musical fancy of the past few years, I’ve followed them, from the development of his Prima Donna opera (the behind-the-scenes documentary is required viewing) to the World Premiere of his Five Shakespeare Sonnets with the San Francisco Orchestra in November 2010. You can’t categorize Wainwright as a traditional pop artist, for sure. Most wouldn’t dare to wear hot pink Crocs while performing in front of a major metropolitan orchestra, but not our dear Rufus.

Wainwright’s last album, 2010’s All Days Are Night: Songs For Lulu, didn’t connect with me the way his previous efforts had. His first album since the death of his beloved mother, Kate McGarrigle, All Days Are Night was a toned-down affair. Featuring just his voice and piano, I missed the baroque-pop and orchestral flourishes I’d grown to love.

Expectations are high for Wainwright’s seventh studio set, Out Of The Game, coming May 1 (a week earlier in the UK and Canada). This time, he sought out producer Mark Ronson (Amy Winehouse, Daniel Merriweather, Duran Duran) to helm the project, which he calls “the most pop album I’ve ever made.” If anyone can coax out a different side of Wainwright than we’ve previously been privy to on record, then it’s Ronson, the dapper-dressed man with a plan and a band (yes, the Dap-Kings are also on board).

“The first song that we really got into was ‘Out Of The Game.’ And hearing that kind of a song, in my mind, set the tone of this sort of warm ’70s, slightly Laurel Canyon meets [David Bowie’s] ‘Young Americans’ — groovy, funky, swinging, hip,” Ronson says. “That was the era when singer-songwriter records started to get really interesting, and incorporate great bands and arrangements and production. I think of Rufus in that kind of lineage.”

As it happens, “Out Of The Game,” which made its full Interweb debut yesterday, is also the album’s first single. There’s a lovely new addition to the House of Rufus, thoughtfully decorated by Wainwright and Ronson in the colors of burnt orange and avocado green and accessorized by shag carpeting, macramé plant hangers, and a large terrarium. Would you mind throwing “Out Of The Game” on the console stereo for me?

While those Crocs might be super-comfy, Wainwright wears this lived-in sound from a long-ago era so very well. Hear a bit more of Out Of The Game via this album teaser posted on YouTube.

Rufus Wainwright’s “Out Of The Game” (single) is available via iTunes (as of 3/13), with the album scheduled for U.S. release on 5/1.