Continuing my look at the albums of 2005…
I had to include this album in my 2005 rundown because it is one of the most critically-acclaimed releases of that year. However, Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois (or Come On Feel the Illinoise!) is a record I’ve just never been able to embrace.
I want to like it. It’s an ambitious indie folk opus by an artist who has a knack for the kind of melancholy music I’m usually drawn to. But it’s way too artsy-fartsy for my taste.
It’s that time of the year when music critics start dropping their best-of lists and I realize how little I pay attention to new music outside of my own little bubble.
Looking back at the hundreds of albums released so far in 2023, the only ones with which I spent any amount of time were by these artists: Belle & Sebastian, boygenius, Lana Del Rey, Bob Dylan, Ben Folds, Jason Isbell, Olivia Rodrigo, The Rolling Stones, and Paul Simon. That’s not even enough for a top ten.
For the top spot on his 2020 list, lead New York Times music critic Jon Pareles chose Sufjan Stevens’ Ascension, the indie artist’s eighth studio album.
Perhaps best known for his Oscar-nominated contribution to Call Me By Your Name, Stevens is partial to dreamy acoustic ballads. On this record, however, he makes heavy use of synthesizers and drum machines, though the end result is still an ethereal wall of sound over which he drapes his half-whispered vocals.
Here’s a track from Sufjan Stevens’ 2005 album Come On Feel the Illinoise!, the second installment in his stated goal to record an album about each of the 50 states. The first was about Michigan.
He later admitted that he was joking about the project, but I continue to think it’s a wonderful idea.
Ah, one of my favorite things, a holiday that falls on a Random Weekend. A chance to spin the wheel and come up with a match that’s surprisingly appropriate, hysterically inappropriate, or somewhere in between.
Before I find out which it is, let me wish a heartfelt Happy Mother’s Day to my own beloved mother, who brightens every day with her warmth, wit and wisdom.
Meet Me In Montauk 