ALBUM OF THE DECADE: Sufjan Stevens – Come on Feel the Illinoise

(poll at the end of the post)
The problem with all these ‘best… of the decade’ debates is that far too much emphasis is placed on subjective taste.

Just because you had a really good night as a fresher, guzzling VK, and drunkenly shouting something resembling the words to the generic, scratchy, indie hit of the moment does not mean it was the album of the decade.

Just as there is a danger to be far too anecdotal in our choice, there’s also the worry of mistaking the accolade of best album of the decade for that of our favorite album of the decade.

As much as I enjoy Phoenix’s Wolfgang, Amadeus Phoenix, or for that matter, my CJS peer, Tom Vicor’s, choice, At the Drive-In’s Relationship of Command, I think to say either is THE album of the decade is to lose a little perspective in the face of personal preference.

With this in mind, there are only two choices which stand out in my mind. The first, Radiohead’s Kid A, would be my #2.

Although some have argued that Kid A isn’t as good as In Rainbows, I think they forget too much of the context: Kid A was the follow up to what everyone with a brain considered to be only second to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in the race for album of the 20^th Century. It saw the group come back from the brink of splitting-up and abandon their guitar-driven sound in favor of a tone influenced as much by Aphex Twin as it was by Miles Davies. Without the seminal minimalism of Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood’s analogue inspired landscapes, the decade would have been very different.

So, in this aural game of rock paper scissors, what beats a work of such magnitude?

The answer is, to me, obvious: Come on Feel the Illinoise by Sufjan Stevens.

As well as being a personal favorite of mine, this record is also one of huge contextual importance — the like of which Pete Doherty, Julian Casablancas, Alex Turner, Brandon Flowers or Johnny Borrell could only dream.

Of all the albums discussed by CJS students in this debate, the 20-track, 70-minute-long Illinoise (as it’s oft referred) is the only suggestion which could be described as an opus (no one, oddly, has yet advocated Aphex Twin’s Drukqs).

Originally written as the second album in the ’50 State Project’ — Stevens’ idea of writing a record for each state in the USA (although Sufjan has now claimed it was a joke) — Illinoise evokes a new kind of patriotism.

At a time when, with death tolls rocketing and Abu Graib fresh in minds, the wheels were beginning to fall off the Iraqi war wagon and American confidence was at an all time low, to conjure such an ambitious work took some serious courage. Luckily for multi-instrumentalist auture Sufjan Stevens, he wasn’t found wanting.

Illinois fuses pop melodies with a kind of neo classicalism that Stravinsky would have been proud of. Its off-kilter time signatures, embellished by Stevens’ breath-soft voice, swirling strings and sombre trumpet makes this a once-in-a-lifetime effort.

After its release it claimed a Top Heatseekers #1. Critics fell over themselves to laud the album and the subsequent tour in which Stevens conducted wearing angel’s wings. Crowds flocked from over the US to celebrate this alternative, exuberant pride.

Illinois’ true genius lies in its unabashed ability to excel at both the orchestral, group vocal led anthems of Chicago, Jacksonville, and The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders (Part 1: The Great Frontier — Part 2: Come to Me Only with Playthings Now), and the deftly-subtle John Wayne Gacy, Jr, and The Seer’s Tower. The latter two really show that Sufjan Stevens can write a touching melody as well as anyone alive.

In The Seer’s Tower, a homage to Chigago’s tallest building, and in John Wayne Gacy, Jr, a chronicle of the serial killer who killed at least 33 young boys in the 1970s, Stevens also shows his prowess as a lyricist. Similarly, Cashmere Pulsaki Day is a perfect example of how he manages to weave personal intricacies of his spiritual life (in this case about a friend with cancer) into songs about the lesser-known quirks and foibles Stevens collected about Illinois state.

The more you delve into the intricacies of the album (of which there are far too many to cover here), the more fascinating the record becomes. Stevens must possess a rare kind of confidence to produce a tapestry to which only the likes of The Beatles’ self titled record (commonly known as The White Album) can be compared.

Put simply, there are many albums this decade which I like. But to pick an album just because, like, you just really couldn’t stop listening to the CD in your car at the time, or you saw a really good ‘gig’ by the artist once from two miles away — at the back of the O2 arena — seems to miss the point a little.

Come on Feel the Illinoise is so ambitious, so varied, so thrilling in the journey it takes its listener on, that to compare it to a group who, in 2001, were told by their manager to play indie rock’n’roll as that was what would make them big (or, for that matter, to compare them to some jumped up New Yorkers whose practice space was bought by daddies money), seems nothing but bloody insulting.

Here are some other suggestions:
At the Drive-In – Relationship of Command by Tom Victor
Bloc Party – Silent Alarm by Joe Curtis
Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am… by Ciaran Jones
The Libertines – Up the Bracket by James Franklin
Brand New – The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me by Hugh Morris
The Killers – Hot Fuss by Nick Moore
Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago by Ammeilo
Daft Punk – Discovery by Will Gilgrass
Kings of Leon – Only by the Night by Caroline Cook
Kings of Leon – Youth and Young Manhood by Becky Rutt
Regina Spektor – Begin to Hope by Fiona Roberts
Bright Eyes – Digital Ash in a Digital Urn by Emma Davies
Coldplay – Parachutes by Dan Bloom
The Stokes – This is it by Alfie Tolhurst
Johnny Cash – Man Comes Around by Mike Brown
Snow Patrol – Eyes Open by Sarah Scott
Arcade Fire – Funeral by Rob Goodman

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