Looking at the discussion around The Age Of Adz, a lot of you loved the album for all the ways it wasn’t like Illinoise. It’s vulnerable, raw, and immediate, and not as immediately pretty. Stevens’s recent interview with the Irish Times confirms that he had the same things in mind when he was making the album:
… ‘liberating’ is an appropriate word, because I felt burdened by the conceptual weight of my previous records. I just wanted to be straightforward, and it was necessary for me to shake it up a little bit. It is more personal, because I didn’t have an object to project meaning on to, so I was left with my own instincts, my own emotional impulses. I was very consciously refining the language… Well, not refining it, but reducing it to core, fundamental principles about love and loneliness. It was about allowing myself to express those feelings in very matter-of-fact, almost cliched terms. The size of the album is a response to all the theatrical clutter that characterised all my previous work. I was getting tired of that self-conscious, rambling psychobabble. I got really sick of myself and my own flawed, epic approach to everything.
Probably the smartest thing Stevens did was get sick of his “flawed, epic approach to everything” before his audience felt the same way, because, (once again) going by the comments, no one wanted another Illinoise, even if it were as good as Illinoise.
Some other interesting bits from the interview: Stevens really did consider quitting music, and he felt that he lost his way while working on The BQE. The National did play some instruments for the Age Of Adz sessions, but Stevens doesn’t think any of it made the actual album. Announcing the 50 States project was just ‘hyperbole’ but he doesn’t regret it at all. And he’s still knitting hats and scarves, with the occasional sweater thrown in.
[Dela-where? artwore via the dearly departed All Good Naysayers.]
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I’m just happy that Sufjan’s self-consciousness/self-doubt manifests itself in such a successful way. In the hands of lesser artists, those traits could make music that goes very, very wrong.
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hyuck hyuck hyuck
Would stereogum kill me if i say i DID want another Illinoise ?
it’s like turning down another bowl of ice-cream. Wont happen. At least i would listen to Illinoise numero dos on the way to fat camp.
Lucky for you, there IS an Illinoise numero dos. The Avalanche :)
seriously, The Avalanche is SO good. of course it’s not Illinoise, but I really tend to visit both albums the same amount these days (these days being the past three years). Probably the Avalanche more really: Illinoise is so internalized at this point.
But wasn’t “Illinois” already another “Michigan”?
That’s how I view it, at least. For the life of me I can’t decide which one is better, it just seems “Illinois” is held in higher regard because that’s when he started gaining more attention.
ok. the album is called ILLINOIS. not ILLINOISE.
this is the link to his record label and the ILLINOIS record:
http://asthmatickitty.com/music.php?releaseID=16
An engrossing musical road trip, “Illinois” takes you through ghost towns, grain mills, hospital rooms, and the City of Broad Shoulders, with guest appearances by a poet, a president, a serial murderer, UFOs, Superman, the goat that cursed the Cubs, and Decatur’s famous Chickenmobile. Sufjan weaves variegated musical styles (jazz, funk, pop, folk, and Rodgers and Hammerstein-like flourishes) and the textures of 25 instruments into a tapestry of persons and places famous, infamous, iconic and anonymous. Invoking the muse of poet Carl Sandburg, “Illinois” ushers in trumpets on parade, string quartets, female choruses and ambient piano scales arranged around Stevens’ emerging falsetto
jesus.
are you serious with this reply? you sound hilarious, really.
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Actually, it’s Asthmatic, Mr. “correct.” In all of your correcting you wrote “Astthmatic.” I thought you would appreciate this. You’re welcome.
“I just believe that if you’re going to discuss something you should take the time to refer to it correctly” jnuh.
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as probably the biggest sufjan fan you’ll meet, i know damn well the album is technically named “illinois,” but i thought correcting people on such trivial things was reserved for the most elitist of hipsters. and, i suppose it is.
Actual, I believe anointing yourself the biggest Sufjan fan is territory expressly reserved for elitist hipsters.
ly
The cover of the album says, “Come on feel the Illinoise”.
you guys are fuckin ridiculous. arguing over one letter? seriously?
I thought the name of the album was “Sufjan Stevens Invites You to Come On, Feel the Illinoise.” Is that way old school?
Better notify itunes of this immediately, in my itunes the album name comes up as “Come on feel the Illinoise!” kinda like it appears on the album cover. it’s almost as if it doesn’t even really matter.
So every album that doesn’t have text on the cover are all untitled?
will you shut the fuck up?
don’t for get the Charlie Brown influence
or Leviticus.
lol.. no doubt.
I clicked on the link, I’m looking at the cover of the CD on that website, as well as the cover of the CD in my hands. I’m preeeeetty sure it says Illinoise…someone help me out here.
It is called Illinois. But, I was thinking today, how The Age of Adz could be Sufjan’s Digital Ash. Both in sound direction, and also in that it’s probably the last good thing he’ll make. Perhaps he’ll have his own Monsters of Freak Folk eventually, or whatever.
Seems like a pretty lazy comparison, to me. Digital Ash was kind of bad and boring, Age Of Adz is anything but.
soof yawn
i see what you did there.
It’s about time he gave up on the 50 states concept, a concept which the Dam Builders were doing in the 1990s and were unable to complete, although I think they just did a song per state and they had done alot of them….so Sufjan might have independently thought of his schtick, it had been thought of before….
I think his best is Seven Swans…Illinois(e) had too many Lincoln references… ;-P Check out the Sea & Cake if you want more of this done better…
Seeing the Dam Builders mentioned just brought a smile to my face.
I would still love to see an artist do a 50 states thing. I should learn how to play and write songs, then I can be the first.
it’s the Dambuilders. No one on this goddamn website can SPELL ANYTHING RIHGT!
I was so looking forward to him bringing his own special blend of delicacy and flourish to the beauty and magic of South Florida.
I was so excited about Adz after hearing the “Live in Ithica” versions last year. They sound fucking incredible! The record sounds like shitty remixes of those great songs.
http://stereogum.com/92181/new_sufjan_stevens_-_theres_too_much_love_live_in/mp3/