"Illinois" by Sufjan Stevens

First of all, I'm not even sure "Illinois" is actually the title.  Most people I know call it "Illinoise" or "Come on Feel the Illinoise" since those words appear on the cover.  But in any official listings of the album, including the website for Asthmatic Kitty (Stevens' record label) it's always just "Illinois."  So that's what we'll call it for the purposes of this review.

All Sufjan Stevens fans know this is the second installment of Sufjan's Fifty States Project, in which he aspires to record an album for each state in the Union.  (Stevens' home state of Michigan was naturally the first.)  It was a facetious claim  -- I'm pretty sure he never really was serious about that and Sufjan may have even come out and said so -- but it's a fun idea and I can't help but imagine what the Pennsylvania album might have featured. 

Anyway, on to the music.  This is a beautiful album.  Stevens has become one of my favorite artists, and this is the first album of his I came to know.  I'm going to dedicate this first album review as a tribute of sorts to Melanie Johnston, 1976-2010.  Melanie was my first music friend -- I've known her since we met on a Kentucky Mission Trip in 1994 -- and no single person has influenced my musical tastes as much as Melanie.  She changed the lives of everyone she met, right up until the day she passed on to that Great Concert Venue in the Sky this past September after a valiant battle with breast cancer.  Sufjan Stevens was one of the artists she introduced into my world. 

Best tracks:

• John Wayne Gacy, Jr.: Who knew a song about a serial killer could be so moving?
• Decatur, Or, Round of Applause for Your Stepmother!:  A jaunty little piece that's just too catchy to ignore
• Chicago: Stevens has released a few alternate versions of this song in recent years, but I think this one is probably the best.
• Casimir Pulaski Day: Best song in Stevens' entire canon in my opinion.  This one will always give me pause because it's a song about a young woman dying of cancer.  Melanie told me I had to hear this song and then was diagnosed with breast cancer a few months later.  But even without that personal impact, this is a hell of a song.  Another friend of mine -- Jessie or Abby Badach, I think -- once said, "Sufjan plays the banjo as if it's an entirely different instrument," and that's exactly how I feel.  Another thing I really love about Stevens' work in general is that it offers a complex and candid exploration of spirituality -- not intensely loyal to any religion (though there are clear references to Christianity in several works) but not quite discarding the idea out-of-hand.  In this song, it's the line, "Tuesday night at the Bible study/We lift our hands and pray over your body/But nothing ever happens."  Simple and to the point but overflowing with meaning and the kinds of questions we all face at some time or another in our lives.
• The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out to Get Us!:  There's just something smooth and perfect about the acoustic guitar in this song.

I'm not crazy about all of the shorter, mostly instrumental pieces that dot the map of this album, but I don't mind them either, and of course, they're meant to provide some nice transition between the major pieces in this set, which they do adequately.  Overall, this album is one of my all-time favorites.  5 STARS for Sufjan Stevens' "Illinois."

5 stars: Excellent; a must-have for any music lover
4 stars: A great addition to your collection
3 stars: An effort that brings adequate quality, though not necessarily consistently
2 stars: A few good songs/pieces, but not a good album overall
1 star: Don't bother; at best, buy the singles of a song or two