A Case Against Sufjan Stephens by Stephen Thomas Erlewine (all music)

That seems like a pretty strong assessment (and might be misleading; IIRC Stevens wasn't raised as a Christian, but I could be wrong). If you replace it with

"a person who grew up in the Midwest and feels a strong conviction to a particular breed of Protestantism"

then you might be more on the money. But as to his audience I think you're right on the money. As far as calling his audience back to the Midwest and back to the type of Christianity he envisions: if you're right, then isn't he doing what you said above you liked about indie: that it's a place to imagine and build something interesting? Unless your view is that nothing Midwestern or Christian could ever be interesting, which I take it is a pretty common view.

just curious

But mainly why I like him is because Michigan sounds like Central New York, which I meant to write a whole thing about sometime.

I didn't like Illinois that much, but maybe he'll get me back on the next one.

Agreed. That's certainly one of the things that I find fascinating about Stevens and Meloy.

Not really: he doesn't need to "imagine" or "built" midwestern Protestantism. When I say I like that about indie, I'm thinking more of acts that seemed to imagine something that didn't so much exist.

i read this really really wrong the first time i glanced at it.

(and it's not like i don't like the kind of music i hear that he plays.)

(fwiw, i still prefer meloy cause he has a sense of humor and sufjan apparently doesn't).

That bit was pretty dumb. People think Sufjan's arrangements are sophisticated because they are. I guess "brass/winds = sophisticated" might be the thought process of some folks, but I'm not convinced that that's really a common view.

or listened to, either.

Wait, I thought that gansta rap was for "a pain-free intro into the US underclass." I'm so confused now!

Will Puerto Rico get an album? I'd LIKE to hear that.

Holden Caulfield would hate Sufjan, he does feel like a phony, though my ears are non-american. I'll take Van Dyke Parks anyday.

I like that idea, you should call an intervention.. everyone can sit down and relate how they feel, recommend some help to the poor misguided boy.

i find that to be completely off the mark. seven swans contains some of the most astonishingly effective songwriting i've heard in years. it is powerful in it's simplicity and sincerity. and the avalanche is a collection of outtakes and songs that didn't make the illinois cut - of course it's cluttered. but empty and without anything to say? that statement begs a relistening, as i find "casimir pulaski day", or "all the trees of the field will clap their hands", or even the short but breathtaking "concerning the ufo sighting..." that kicks off illinois to all be rife with imagery, thoughtfulness and quiet beauty. and his arrangements ARE sophisticated - 5/8 time and 15+ instrument parts aren't something someone who's listened to smile a few times and played in HS band could just pull off.

but i have little patience for "a case against" articles in music crit anyway. unless there's a genuine reason, like an artist takes a political or social stance that can be analyzed, or has done things in her or her personal life that seeps into their music and thus begs questioning, i don't really see the point. does anyone listen to sufjan so they can empathize with the working class without actually helping them? hardly. one would not say such a thing about springsteen's "nebraska", or for a more contemporary example, the hold steady's "separation sunday". hell, what about white people listening to hip hop? the whole argument is lame and unfounded. besides, half of sufjan's songs, at least on illinois, are about american history and the disconnect between the past and the present.

You can also probably guess that he was probably the very type of hipster that fell for these type of collegiate indie-rock gimmicks at some point (It's even alluded to in the first sentence) and so he writes with the authority of somebody who knows exactly how and why these things get popular and why some or all of it is nonsense. It also doesn't hurt that he knows his pop/rock history well enough to see the individual influences these guys take from and so he isn't fooled in the way NPR and undergraduate culture usually is.

Basically Sufjan Stevens reminds me of the guy that plays the sensitive card to pick up girls. It's a gambit that really rubs me the wrong way.

Even in his heart the Devil has to know the water level
Are you writing from the heart?
Are you writing from the heart?

I feel that I would have embraced "Illinois" more had I not known his intentions of writing about the 50 states, even more if his lyrics were different. No where is this more apparent to me than on the track "John Wayne Gacy Jr.". GAH this song irks me like NO OTHER. In fact, I was loving his stuff until I got to this song, and it epitomizes everything that I don't appreciate about Sufjan. The song is great up until the line "And in my best behavior I am really just like him. Look beneath the floorboards for the secrets I have hid." Excuse me? How about no. His attempt at pseudo-moral-philosophy fell really flat with me, just because his example is so ludicrous. "Oh look, John Wayne Gacy Jr. raped and murdered dozens of innocent boys, but hey everyone, guess what? We are all human and can relate to him and thusly are all capable of (or have even done) the same evil". In fact, that should have been the title of his track, to keep in sync with the other equally ridiculous titles.

I liked him at Michigan, but now I'm a bitch like everyone else because Illinois was more widely recognized. It took no balls to write that when he did.

Again- shots at the NPR/Starbucks crowd- feel a bit cooler now that the Kallikak Family wasn't playing while you got your latte?

for one thing, 5/8 is easy as hell to play over -- improvising is another thing, but if you've got some level of basic competence, just playing the charts should be a breeze. try figuring out radiohead's "pyramid song" if you want challenging time signatures in pop, never mind jazz or classical. as for the instruments, i haven't listened that closely but if you play one instrument in a family, it's not that hard to learn the others, particularly if you're only playing basic stuff (eg. if you play alto sax, sopranino and recorder aren't much of a leap). he's not a high school band chancer, but then, he's been a professional musician for a while now, and deserves to be held to a high standard if you're going to praise him for his musicianship.

what i recall from listening to Illinoise a couple times is that his arrangements aren't very complicated - lots of unison lines, simple chord progressions etc. not much to sink your teeth into, and pretty bland/samey to boot. SMILE at least had a lot of great close harmony writing, motific development, and orchestration. i'm kind of talking out of my ass without really listening harder to Illinoise though -- someone feel free to school me.

Columbia!

It sounds like he reads The Baffler

If so you should love Sufjan as he has never fucked with the formula.

But I realize that while gloom-n-doom styles have been ascendent since the grunge era, the pendulum is already starting to swing the other way. Jurek's piece is bemoaning the "death" of something that's actually experiencing a rebirth. Kids are gravitating towards the fun-fun party-party rawk. See The Darkness, Towers of London, Avenged Sevenfold, etc. Hell, that's what the whole retro-pop-punk thing was all about, anyway. And that's been going on for a decade, even losing steam at this point.

Shit, and while Jurek includes Prince and Michael Jackson in his summary of 80s hedonism, he reduces the total spectrum of 90s music to certain rock styles. What about hip-hop, teenpop and R&B? While Korn may have been gloomy as hell, Ludacris and *NSYNC sure weren't.

Plus it's so stodgy and curmudgeonly. Bleah.

I don't really see why he should be talking about Ludacris and *NSYNC any more than I would expect an article on the Second Viennese School to talk about Jimmie Lunceford or the Four Freshmen.

And he bemoans the gloomy pall that grunge and post-grunge rock cast (or reflected). But that ain't the only rock out there. Pop-punk went strong for quite a while, and gloom rock seems to be in decline -- debatably. Hedonistic pop-metal and hard rock styles certainly seem more popular over the last half-decade than in, say, the mid 90s. Don't see how the failure of the 2nd Darkness album really diminishes this.

The early century isn't as innocent or exuberant as the 80s. Given. But it isn't all piss and moan, either. It's kinda divided. Heart-wrenching indie-emo splits the bill with often upbeat dance rock and indie hip-hop. Gangsta rap settles into middle aged, nearly-blissful bougification. And grunge and nu-metal sag from the spotlight to be replaced by, what? Dunno, but it seems like less miserable forms are seeping in from all sides.

soooo. i think i've figured out why i don't like to listen to him. i feel it's fake. like there are all these sounds, motifs, directions -- but none of them are really committed. a tinge of this mood, that instrument -- for a product that's completely quirky and unique, but that doesn't really identify with any of its quirky elements.

it feels like when i cook, and i have no idea how to cook, so i throw 40 spices in one pot.

sufjan stevens is like "40 spices hummus." not right.

There's nothing inherently twee about 40 spices hummus.

dude that 40 spices hummus is fucking GOOOD tho.

I hate sufjan stevens fwiw.

haha i know, it's better than him