Sufjan Stevens / Illinois

1. Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois
   
2. 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!'
   
3. Come On! Feel the Illinoise!
   
   1. The World's Columbian Exposition
   2. Carl Sandburg Visits Me in a Dream
4. John Wayne Gacy, Jr.
   
5. Jacksonville
   
6. A Short Reprise for Mary Todd, Who Went Insane, but for Very Good Reasons
   
7. Decatur, or, Round of Applause for Your Step Mother!
   
8. One Last 'Whoo-Hoo!' for the Pullman
   
9. Chicago
   
10. Casimir Pulaski Day
    
11. To the Workers of the Rock River Valley Region, I Have an Idea Concerning Your Predicament
    
12. The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts
    
13. Prairie Fire That Wanders About
    
14. A Conjunction of Drones Simulating the Way in Which Sufjan Stevens Has an Existential Crisis in the Great Godfrey Maze
    
15. The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!
    
16. They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhhh!
    
17. Let's Hear That String Part Again, Because I Don't Think They Heard It All the Way Out in Bushnell
    
18. In This Temple as in the Hearts of Man for Whom He Saved the Earth
    
19. The Seer's Tower
    
20. The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders
    
    1. The Great Frontier"
    2. Come to Me Only with Playthings Now
21. Riffs and Variations on a Single Note for Jelly Roll, Earl Hines, Louis Armstrong, Baby Dodds, and the King of Swing, to Name a Few
    
22. Out of Egypt, into the Great Laugh of Mankind, and I Shake the Dirt from My Sandals as I Run

My god, the song titles! Are they not epic?

Okay, so a lot of people I respect really like this Sufjan guy, and I've never really listened to him properly... so now I am.

So, I'll just be saying "Track 1", "Track 2", etc., mmkay? Because fuck you if you think I'm writing the whole title out.

Track 1 is definitely a nice start.

Track 3 has some funky piano for the whole five seconds before it sounds like it's being played by a mariachi band or something. The singing is cool though, the beat of it.

Track 4 is surprisingly morbid... and if it weren't for the lyrics, it might even be a nice song.

Mmm. Like the tune of Track 9.

Track 12 is pretty funky. And a tad bit boppy, too.

... Track 13 makes me think of merry-go-round music. It's kinda cool.

Ooh, I like Track 16. The strings and (again) choir-y sound (I'm a sucker for many people singing one thing) plus the stilted way in which the words are sung in that section.

Track 20's another cool one, with the beat. And choir-ness. And clapping. (I also heart clapping in a major way) I looked at the length of this one, and thought "oh god, over seven minutes", but it's actually been a very fun seven minutes.

Eh, Track 22 kind of seems like an unfulling end, for me. I wanted to go out with a bang.

Overall this is a pretty cruise-y album. I'm surprised by how good it is (and how much I like it). That said, I probably wouldn't listen to it over and over, 'cause it's a bit too cruise-y. It has its fun moments, and those are the tracks that I'm likely to listen to again, but as a whole, it's not really good. Just good.

Chicago is cool, the tune and choir... same with Zombies and Tallest Man, but favourite track would have to be John Wayne Gacy, Jr., for the sheer "wtf" factor. (It's still a decent song if you ignore the lines about corpses beneath the floorboards.)

instrumental