Sufjan Stevens- Come On Feel the Illinoise

This is a great follow-up album to his last one on Michigan. His music takes some patience to appreciate though, what with the song titles longer than some people's vocabulary (see "A Conjunction of Drones Simulating the Way in Which Sufjan Stevens Has an Existential Crisis in the Great Godfrey Maze"), and the many allusions to American (more specifically Illinois's) history. There are references to Frank Lloyd Wright, the United Nations, and some Polish revolutionary hero that I'm still deciphering... Still, despite the seemingly staggering scope of the album, it rewards your committment by unveiling something more spiritual and personal beneath. The track "John Wayne Gacy, Jr.", about the Chicago serial killer doesn't so much remember the murderer than to remind ourselves that maybe deep down, we all fall short because we're flawed by sin.

Jude and I enjoy his stuff because he writes like a poet, his words more like narratives than lyrics. Click here for his set on Morning Becomes Eclectic. I recommend The Predatory Wasp of The Palisades is Out To Get Us! where he mourns the death of his best friend, while Jude's track of choice, Decatur, or, Round of Applause for Your Stepmother! is a sublime exercise in awesome rhyming (I never imagined you could write a coherent song with the words "alligator", "aviator", "debater", "emancipator" altogether.)