Sufjan Stevens reminds me a lot of Grady Tripp, the main character in Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys (surprise! I'm a book nerd too!). Grady Tripp is a pot-smoking college English professor who is working on a follow up to his critically acclaimed best seller, which he wrote 7 years ago. Everyone thinks he has writer's block. He actually has the opposite problem, he can't stop writing. He is already well over 2,000 pages and, has several weddings, murders, catastrophes and calamities still to add to the book before it will reach it's conclusion. He has been working on the book for 7 years, he has included in it a genealogy of the major characters' horses, and their dental records. He simply can't stop himself.
Similarly, "Illinois" is, I believe, the second album in Sufjan Stevens' attempt to make an album for every state in America (there's 50 of them for those of you who struggled in American History). He has since abandoned the project, and released a new album "The Age of Adz" which I haven't listened to yet. The itunes version of "Illinois" has 26 songs on it. The normal version has 22. The majority of songs are over the 5 minute mark and have titles such as "The Black Hawk of War, or How to Destroy an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning", "A Short Reprise for Mary Todd, Who Went Insane but for Very Good Reasons", and my personal favorite "They are Night Zombies!! They are Out Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhh!!" He can't seem to stop himself from writing.
The album (recently named Paste Magazine's Best Album of the Decade) is a sprawling work. There are choirs, horns, strings, banjos, wurrlitzers, pump organs, droning sound effects, guitars and more choirs. All of it is built around Sufjan's quiet whispery voice. Lyrically the songs all focus around some aspect of Illinois' history or notable people and incidents from the state. Most of the songs have a slow mournful sound to them and fall into the mid-tempo ballads category. Occassionally, he mixes it up: the slow funk of the Zombies song (I'm not going to re-write all of that!), and the guitar rock of "The Man from Metropolis Steals Our Hearts" or the big piano chorus of "Come on! Feel the Illinoise!". This isn't to say that all of the slow stuff is bad, "John Wayne Gacy, Jr." is a great song as is "Decatur, Or, A Round of Applause for your Stepmother", "Casmir Polaski Day" and the anthemic "Chicago".
I like the record. It doesn't fit nicely into one category. It sprawls between folk music, classical, operatic, and pop. But it sprawls a little too much. There are too many noise interludes, too many choirs singing the chorus' and few too many slow ballads. If Stevens could reign himself in a little, and edit himself, it would be a better, more consistent record. After a while it begins to seem tiresome to listen through another musical interlude, or another women's choir singing the chorus to a song that has gone on for 6 minutes. I normally like songs that are a bit longer, but for whatever reason, this record seems to drag on. It's not just that it's long, it's that it feels long.
Stevens is certainly an interesting song writer. And I think there is something to be said for aiming high and trying to make something big and bold rather than something that just tries to fit in. I just wish he could stop himself once in a while. There's nothing wrong with a song not having a 3 minute noise track intro, or just having 5 slow ballads instead of 10 on a record. In Wonder Boys, a character remarks after reading most of Tripp's novel, that it feels like he didn't make any choices. Instead of choosing what to include and what to leave out, he just included everything. "Illinois" is kind of the same thing. Stevens just included everything, and while the good stuff is really really good, you have to wade through some mediocre music to find it.
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