Illinois

Sufjan Stevens

album cover

Two Down, Forty-eight to Go

At first people thought Sufjan Stevens was joking. After garnering big acclaim for his second solo effort Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lakes State (2003), the singer, songwriter, and nu-folk mystic from Michigan told interviewers he intended to create a series of albums of original songs, one for each state in the union. A grand and quixotic plan a social studies teacher could love, this project seemed likely to exhaust Stevens's considerable compositional resources—even as it earned him a place in the novelty-music hall of fame.

Then came the even more inventive Illinoise, and suddenly Stevens's modest proposal didn't seem like such a joke. These smart and occasionally subversive songs celebrate the salient characteristics of Illinois: The album opens with a wide-eyed expression of awe about the possible existence of aliens, "Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois." From there, Stevens involves such notable figures as the poet Carl Sandburg (who visits Stevens in a dream), the notorious gangster Al Capone, and the serial killer John Wayne Gacy, using the characters as springboards for all sorts of writerly pondering. The local color functions in the manner of a TV-news crawl at the bottom of the screen—it's a sidelight, not the main show. Stevens's observations on human nature are so trenchant, they transcend state lines.

Stevens sprinkles impressive helpings of ear candy through these diverse tunes— scruffy alt-rock hooks, broad-shouldered arena anthems, and sneaky, sophisticated melodies that occupy a little-explored zone between folk reflection and the jazz stratosphere. A gifted multi-instrumentalist, he thinks in terms of texture and color, and on this record spends more time creating lush settings than worrying about vocal perfection. He knows he's not the kind of singer who's going to wow anybody, and his deliberately low-affect approach—a disarmingly candid all's-swell-in-the-meditation-room demeanor—suits the songs of Illinoise perfectly.

Genre: Rock
Released: 2005, Asthmatic Kitty
Key Tracks: "Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois," "The Black Hawk War," "John Wayne Gacy, Jr.," "The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders"
Catalog Choice: Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lakes State
Next Stop: Devendra Banhart: Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon
After That: Jim O'Rourke: Eureka
Book Pages: 742–743

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Comments:

#1 from Ian Alexander, Toronto - 10/28/2008 12:05

This is a really great list. Of course there are choises I question, but that’s part of what is so great about it. Thanks for it.

That said, I need to nitpick a bit here, because you’ve got the title of this album wrong. The proper title of this album is actually ‘Illinois’. Though it is in large letters on the cover, Illinoise is only used in the extended title of ‘Sufjan Stevens invites you to: Come on feel the Illinoise’.

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About 1,000 Recordings

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