Illinois (2xLP)
VINYL FORMAT. Like the self-proclaimed "Spiderman" who climbed Chicago's Sears Tower with no harness, Sufjan Stevens scales dusty prairies, steel factories, and two hundred years of history in the second installment of his 50 State Project, Illinois, a 22-track anthematic tone poem to The Prairie State. Stevens weaves variegated musical styles (jazz, funk, pop, folk, and Rodgers and Hammerstein-like flourishes) and the textures of 25 instruments into a tapestry of persons and places famous, infamous, iconic and anonymous. Invoking the muse of poet Carl Sandburg, "Illinois" ushers in trumpets on parade, string quartets, female choruses and ambient piano scales arranged around Stevens' emerging falsetto.
| Tracklisting | |
| Disk | 1 | |
| 1 | Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois |
| 2 | Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Fe |
| 3 | Come On! Feel the Illinoise!: The World's Columbian Exposition/Carl San |
| 4 | John Wayne Gacy, Jr. |
| 5 | Jacksonville |
| 6 | Shirt Reprise for Mary Todd, Who Went Insane, for Very Good Reasons |
| 6 | Short Reprise for Mary Todd, Who Went Insane, for Very Good Reasons |
| 7 | Decatur, or, Round of Applause for Your Stepmother! |
| 8 | One Last Whoo-Hoo! for the Pullman |
| 9 | Chicago |
| 10 | Casimir Pulaski Day |
| 11 | To the Workers of the Rock River Valley Region, I Have an Idea Concerni |
| 12 | Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts |
| 13 | Prairie Fire That Wanders About |
| 14 | Conjunction of Drones Simulating the Way in Which Sufjan Stevens Has an |
| 15 | Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us! |
| 16 | They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from |
| 17 | Let's Hear That String Part Again, Because I Don't Think They Heard It |
| 18 | In This Temple As in the Hearts of Man for Whom He Saved the Earth |
| 19 | Seer's Tower |
| 20 | Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders: The Great Frontier/Come to Me Only |
| 21 | Riffs and Variations on a Single Note for Jelly Roll, Earl Hines, Louis |
| 22 | Out of Egypt, into the Great Laugh of Mankind, and I Shake the Dirt fro |
| Adam M
- Hudson, IL, |
| Arguably, one of the most influential albums in indie rock, ever! Sufjan uses very well-known to totally obscure references, people, places and events in Illinois to tell biographical, oft autobiographical tales of life. His Christian undertones aren't over-the-top and preachy, but still present in most of the songs on the album. Brilliant instrumentation, brilliant lyrics, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. | |
| nate m.
- n, , canada |
| "Waiting For Guffman" instrumentation meets folk-pop wherein the protagonist cries during literally every song. | |
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