Sufjan Stevens

I am doing a very bad job of blogging, I am very lazy. But I feel compelled to provide myself an outlet for my praise of the master that is Mr Sufjan Stevens.
Most people will not have heard of him, thats a shame for them. His music is exceptionally hard to describe, but well worth listening to.
My friend thinks its cult music, but only based on the titles of the songs (the highlight surely being 'The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience but You're Going to Have to Leave Now, or, "I have fought the Big Knives and will continue to fight them until they are off our lands!"' – that's just one song title, not lots of them).
So yeah, it's slightly odd, and may take a few listens to understand what you're actually listening to, but when it clicks it's closer to perfection than most musicians can dream of.
Stevens is currently undertaking a frankly ridiculous project of making an album for all 50 states in the US, of which he has currently covered Michigan and Illinios. And he's not making it easy on himself either. Illinois, the lastest album, has 22 tracks on it, so it's fair to say he's got a while to go. But if the standard stays the same, I can easily see my CD collection increasing by another 48.

: 06 Mar 2006 15:09 |  Comments (1) |  Report a problem