Top 25 Albums Of The Decade (#2)

2) SUFJAN STEVENS – Illinois (2005)

“I made a lot of mistakes,” but this is not one of them. I admit that a part of me is somewhat slightly embarrassed by this choice. For a couple of reasons. One is Stevens’ voice, which is so airy and soft and “vulnerable” that it makes me want to kick him in the face. Another is the song titles—which are so ridiculously overwrought that they put even Bal Sagoth to shame—and the fact that Stevens can get away with constantly crying in the lyrics. But I guess most “favorite” albums are bound to be embarrassing—since often what you find in your favorite music is a reflection of something deep in yourself that can’t be explained and probably shouldn’t, else you ruin all the fun. In other words, if you list Only Through The Pain by Trapt as your favorite album of all time, then what does this say about you? Likewise, what does it say about you when your #2 Album Of The Decade is something that’s a lot like Simon & Garfunkel’s “Feelin’ Groovy” stretched out to seventy-five minutes? Attribute it to my pop tendencies I guess, the part of me that’s willing to put up with any amount of shame as long as bells and vocal harmonies are involved. Therefore think of Illinois as something Paul Simon might have come up with if he’d had access to countless backup singers, orchestras and every musical instrument known to mankind. It’s huge, overbearing, busy, ambitious, meticulously-tailored and catchy as all get out—a patchwork quilt chronicling the history and zeitgeist of a state I’ve never been to (though I became acquainted with many Illini in St. Louis when the Tar Heels whipped their basketball team’s ass in the National Championship game—in the same year that this album was released). But where Stevens really succeeds is in his anonymity. “Like the god of all creation,” he stands “within or behind or above or beyond his own handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails.” Less concerned, that is, with constructing a personal narrative than he is with embracing all humanity in the finest testament to Agapē since “It’s A Small World After All” (and only slightly less obnoxious). Who else could write a heartbreaking (and bone-chilling) song about John Wayne Gacy that is NOT a “what he never got to say” type of thing? The whole encompassing story-cycle of Illinois generates such a remarkable amount of empathy that you’ll come away entirely convinced that every person on the planet deserves free healthcare. It makes you forget, for an hour and fifteen minutes, that your downstairs neighbors are dicks. It makes you want to buy Christmas double-albums. All of which makes me wonder: does Sufjan Stevens use the bathroom like the rest of us? He’s never tried to pretend that he’s not an angel from some direct-to-video live-action Disney film, come to teach us all how to love our fellow man and steal our girlfriend at the same time. Where will he go once two centuries have passed and the Fifty States Project is finally completed? Who will we turn to for those “high highs?”—you know, those rarely-attained moments in music that make you go all silent inside, when you sit poised and expectantly clinging to every particle of every note and suddenly realize that you’ve forgotten to breathe. I always consider it a lucky find if an album provides just one of these moments—Illinois provides several. It’s an album that’s so good that it makes me want to shrug off all of my duties just to listen to it one more time. So good, even, that at one point I had to ban myself from listening to it for two weeks straight (and I only cheated once). It’s an album that just… hurts. And I'm not afraid to admit it. Dammit.