catapult magazine

I went to my friendly neighborhood record store to pick up Sufjan Stevens’ “Seven Swans” album. I had heard so much good about it and, even though the Michigan album seemed too quiet and pensive for me, I thought “Seven Swans”—with all the references to the victorious Book of Revelation—would be different. I cannot emphasize enough just how deflated I felt when I heard this album. And I feel guilty for not liking it as much as I don’t. What am I missing? Do I have wrong expectations for it? Is it just a matter of my taste being more for music that lights a fire under people’s assymetricales? Or does it need to be listened to only in a dark room encircled by candles to get the full effect?

Musically speaking, what does Stevens do that Nick Drake and Elliot Smith haven’t already done better? Is it just the fact that Stevens writes sincerely about his relationship with God? I know there are Sufjan fans out there. Tell me what I need to know before I go to hear him at the Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing. ‘Cause I’d really rather enjoy listening to him than sit in my seat fuming and wishing I was running sprints the whole time he’s up on stage playing his mellow melodies.

Grant,

You have a bias toward rock and roll, that’s all. And Sufjan doesn’t really play rock and roll. Yes, I think it’s probably a matter of taste. There’s plenty of room for both Stevens’ music and for rock music. Man should not try to live on Sufjan alone.

But I do think that he’s definitely bringing something new to the musical table. Have you listened to “Sleeping Bear, Sault Saint Marie” from the Michigan album? Or “Seven Swans”? Sufjan is doing much more intricate and quirky things with harmonies and instruments (banjo, organ, etc.) than Elliot Smith or Nick Drake. I also had a chance to see him live and that really sealed the deal for me. He’s a ridculously unpretentious and honest performer. When you hear him at the festival, just suspend your desire for electric guitars and soaring solos and enjoy the music for what it is.

If you want rock and roll, try Liars. Have you heard them? Whoa.

I love the Michigan album. Such wonderful textures. It feels like countryside music. Bubbling brooks and rustling leaves. I heard he’s going to do one for each state. I’m looking forward to Texas. Maybe he’ll work with Queens of the Stone age to try to get that desert feel. That’d be a killer combo.

A listening update: after making a couple more forced sit downs in front of the “Seven Swans” album, I am starting to warm up to it. It takes being in a certain mood. I do appreciate the sonic textures and harmonies, but he likes some of his melodies too much and dwells on them a bit too long. And then adds textures over top. That’s different than Drake and Elliot, yes. It doesn’t help that sometimes my wife, who has a classical piano bias, is sometimes in the house when I’m listening and occasionally makes “yuck” faces and comments on how annoying the melodies and vocalizations are. I don’t doubt the sincerity in the album and I don’t think my dislike has as much to do with Sufjan Stevens himself as it does my expectations for Christians in contemporary popular music. It just seems like Christianity is most frequently expressed in folk-meditative type music. Even many of our good Christian rock’n’rollers stick pretty close to Dylanesque blues and “mountain” music. The pastoral sense in Sufjan Stevens is indeed well communicated. I’m just looking for our urban brethren and sistren to reveal the baby Jesus under the trash with the kind of street and alleyway urgency that reflects Christ’s double-edged spirit as well. So, yeah, maybe my comments belong in the “meek and mild Christians” post instead and I should stop wishing Sufjan Stevens made different music than he does.

I find Sufjan’s lyrics very emotionally charged (Casimir Pulaski Day, John Wayne Gacy, Jr. both off of Illinois). Sure, Elliott Smith’s songs are charged — but with thoughts of drugs and suicide. Sufjan deals with tough issues in a way that yes, causes the listener to think, but usually ends up on an uplifting note. He’s fabulous live, and after seeing him live it’s easy to understand that he is being honest and genuine on his records.

Ok, see now if we’re talking about the Illinoise album, that’s a different matter. That album gets off its ass. It is diverse and colorful and wonderful and noisy and soft. It is what I had been wanting to hear from Stevens. And I did have a change of heart after seeing Stevens live. It was kind of like a small ensemble in an orchestra hall somewhere. I heard his first show in Vancouver didn’t go very well, though. It makes sense since there are so many things to get right on that album. I like Stevens better as a Brian Wilsonesque pop re-interpreter of 20th Century minimalism (Glass, Reich etc.) Good stuff.

Grant, I too took a while to to warm up to Sufjan’s albums after being so delighted by his Christmas songs floating around the internet. I enjoyed the concert I went to with the Illinoisemakers in a small, sweaty venue in St. Louis even though some of the music did sound cacophonous to me at times.

I bought [i:449e5337cf]Seven Swans [/i:449e5337cf] first, which did not take, and has not completely yet taken, hold of me in the first few listenings, but which is slowly, but surely, building steam. And this past weekend I discovered, if I am not mistaken, that the last song on [i:449e5337cf]Seven Swans [/i:449e5337cf]weaves in some of the melody from the song Chicago on the [i:449e5337cf]Illinois[/i:449e5337cf] CD. It "prechoes" (OK, that doesn’t work as well as "prequel" does, because you can’t here the "pre") the "all things go, all things grow" line, I think. is really a favorite.

Swans[/i:1404552e1d] is a weird album, to me— I really like it a lot, but a few aspects annoy me (the repetativeness of some so-so melodies, for instance). But again, I think some of his best songs are also on the album. I really dig it in the long run, I guess, but it’s not flawless.