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.
I don’t have much patience for songs like this one from Sufjan Stevens’ 2010 album The Age of Adz.
This reminds me of Radiohead post-OK Computer. Many critics would call that a great thing, but I think Radiohead was just swell right through OK Computer and then turned into total garbage.
Three and a half months into 2018, I’m still catching up on the 2017 films I missed in theaters. This week I’ll write about a few of them.
By the time I got around to Call Me By Your Name, I had heard so much about it that it was impossible for me to have anything close to a pure experience. I’d read fawning reviews and brutal takedowns. My daughter loves it while my nephew hates it. I read about the father’s closing scene so often that I relented and watched it on YouTube long before I watched the rest of the film.
Meet Me In Montauk 