as with all previous singles I'm also not gonna listen to this one until the full album is out
staying strong!
The best one so far. Cant believe the album is coming next week. The rollout has been so long and slow
The best one so far. Cant believe the album is coming next week. The rollout has been so long and slow
!https://youtu.be/56bU7xAU1tM
I’ve never heard anything other than illinoize? Anything worth checking out?
If you're a big fan of Illinois, for sure check out The Avalanche and Michigan
Age of Adz is a more experimental album from him but one that is loved by many fans.
Seven Swans and Carrie & Lowell are more soft and folksy projects that get a lot of praise as well
going to cram listen his discography before this comes out
The best one so far. Cant believe the album is coming next week. The rollout has been so long and slow
!https://youtu.be/56bU7xAU1tMincredible video. trying to stop myself from listening to the song on repeat til the album drops
just over a week to go. trying to not listen to the singles at all. america slapped though.
theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/09/sufjan-stevens-ascension-bossy-and-bitchy/616366
new profile for The Atlantic, here are some of the more album-based tidbits that are in the article:
The Ascension, like its creator’s personal affect, is more jaunty than might be expected. After the hushed strumming of Carrie & Lowell, Stevens returned to the synthesizers and drum machines that defined 2010’s Age of Adz, a dazzling left-turn of an album that decisively ended his 50 states phase. Although The Ascension is more depressing than the madcap Adz, its approach does call to mind Stevens’s 2010–11 tour, for which he employed backup dancers while clad in neon.
The Ascension’s song titles reference many famous works—The Godfather, the epic of Gilgamesh, Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Run Away With Me”—and some of the hookier, danceable moments evoke Janet Jackson. A goth streak runs throughout, too, starting when the opening track reaches a warehouse-techno climax that sounds like Nine Inch Nails covering the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.”
“I just got so sick of folk music,” Stevens said. “Don’t get me wrong: I’m fundamentally and always will be a folk singer-songwriter. But I needed to exorcise all of those folk idioms ... I also think this record, because it is political and bossy and b****y, needed to be somewhat fun, sonically.”
That’s not to say he’s entirely removed himself from his music. The droning new song “Ativan” portrays a panic spiral treated with medication; Stevens says he wants to bring transparency to the sort of mental-health issues he has dealt with. On a later track, “Goodbye to All That”—a hopeful-sounding highlight whose sleigh bells and choral harmonies recall Stevens’s many Christmas albums—he even mentions his birth year, 1975, before singing, “It’s too late to have died a young man.” The song, like the Joan Didion essay it’s named for, is his kiss-off to New York City. It’s also a call for the listener, and the world, to make a break with the toxic past.
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/09/sufjan-stevens-ascension-bossy-and-bitchy/616366/
new profile for The Atlantic, here are some of the more album-based tidbits that are in the article:
The Ascension, like its creator’s personal affect, is more jaunty than might be expected. After the hushed strumming of Carrie & Lowell, Stevens returned to the synthesizers and drum machines that defined 2010’s Age of Adz, a dazzling left-turn of an album that decisively ended his 50 states phase. Although The Ascension is more depressing than the madcap Adz, its approach does call to mind Stevens’s 2010–11 tour, for which he employed backup dancers while clad in neon.
The Ascension’s song titles reference many famous works—The Godfather, the epic of Gilgamesh, Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Run Away With Me”—and some of the hookier, danceable moments evoke Janet Jackson. A goth streak runs throughout, too, starting when the opening track reaches a warehouse-techno climax that sounds like Nine Inch Nails covering the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.”
“I just got so sick of folk music,” Stevens said. “Don’t get me wrong: I’m fundamentally and always will be a folk singer-songwriter. But I needed to exorcise all of those folk idioms ... I also think this record, because it is political and bossy and b****y, needed to be somewhat fun, sonically.”
That’s not to say he’s entirely removed himself from his music. The droning new song “Ativan” portrays a panic spiral treated with medication; Stevens says he wants to bring transparency to the sort of mental-health issues he has dealt with. On a later track, “Goodbye to All That”—a hopeful-sounding highlight whose sleigh bells and choral harmonies recall Stevens’s many Christmas albums—he even mentions his birth year, 1975, before singing, “It’s too late to have died a young man.” The song, like the Joan Didion essay it’s named for, is his kiss-off to New York City. It’s also a call for the listener, and the world, to make a break with the toxic past.
Damn this makes me more hype. Being comapred to agenof adz
Really can’t believe that we’re getting a new sufjan album finally one of the only good things happening this year
Really can’t believe that we’re getting a new sufjan album finally one of the only good things happening this year
Music in general been perhaps the best thing about this year
Definitely been an extremely strong year