Albums Of The Decade: #6 – Illinois

by Micah Wimmer on December 8th, 2009

I’ve never felt much of a connection to any one place. I’ve lived in Akron, Ohio longer than anywhere else and I left it behind about four months ago. I really don’t miss it too much yet, but I wouldn’t call Anderson, Indiana home yet either. This may say more about me than Akron and Anderson, but regardless, any sort of song glorifying the heartlands means nothing to me. I’ve only been to Illinois once. I was there for a week and was never within one hundred miles of Chicago. I’ve also never been to New York City, let alone in a van with my friends. In theory, Illinois should be an album I have no connection to, an album meant for a select group of listeners, presumably those hailing from the Land of Lincoln. The fact that it isn’t is what makes Illinois so impressive.

On the cover, we have Al Capone, a goat, UFOs, and the Chicago skyline. None of these things have an immediate connection to Stevens or most of us, yet Stevens is able to weave these disparate elements together into his story and ours. Carl Sandburg asks Sufjan if he’s writing from the heart on the third track, but the best example of interconnectedness between the stories of others and himself comes on the next track ‘John Wayne Gacy, Jr.’. Usually, writing songs about serial killers is the job of various metal bands as opposed to singer-songwriters, but Sufjan does it with amazing skill and sensitivity which is essential. Stevens treats Gacy as a sympathetic figure, which may seem odd at first, but it really isn’t. As opposed to writing about Gacy as solely despicable and repulsive, he speaks of his father’s alcoholism and the swing set that hit his head at age 11 which may have contributed to his mental state. Sufjan certainly doesn’t gloss over the horror of Gacy’s actions either though. Instead, he makes them even more personal. As opposed to just saying he killed a lot of kids, he notes their humanity, that they had summer jobs and cars. But still, this is not a detached biographical song as Sufjan finally ends by saying he is like Gacy himself, hiding his own secrets beneath the floorboards.

This isn’t to say that he can’t focus exclusively on his own stories extremely well either. ‘Casimir Pulaski Day’ is easily the most personal track on the album as he recounts the tale of a friend stricken with bone cancer who eventually dies, and the struggles that come with trying to reconcile G-d’s will with human tragedy. His vocals are extremely fitting to the song’s solemn lyrics as they are clearly heartfelt, yet not overly dramatized as the lyrics carry enough weight on their own. It shows a dexterity that few artists possess in being able to write songs that view either inward or outward equally well.

Illinois‘ reception also had an exceptional dexterity as the album received glowing reviews from publications as diverse as Pitchfork, Alternative Press, and Entertainment Weekly, which is rare. It seemed as if everyone who cared about music was listening to Illinois, which seems particularly odd now in hindsight considering it hasn’t sold a spectacular amount, but regardless, it didn’t take long for ‘Chicago’ to be heard in Little Miss Sunshine or be referenced on Sportscenter. It could be the one common musical theme between your hipster friend and your little brother. The sweeping instrumentation and Reich-inspired minimalism largely unique to Sufjan could easily appeal to the more refined listener and the pop sensibilities could easily draw everyone else in.

A UFO sighting gains new weight and reverence when Sufjan sings about it and the emotional attachment that he is able to connect to the stories of other people is what makes this album such a spectacular achievement. When we look back at the work of other great songwriters, it is often the times they write most clearly about themselves that we remember most fondly. Bob Dylan writing about his divorce on Blood On the Tracks and Joni Mitchell’s transparency throughout Blue are two great examples of where they reveal something new about themselves and we latch onto it. Throughout Illinois, Sufjan does the opposite and is just as successful; he reveals something about ourselves, which is much harder to do.

Micah Wimmer

Honorable Mentions (Part 1)
Honorable Mentions (Part 2)
#50-41
#40-31
#30-21
#20-11
#10 / #9 / #8 / #7 / #5 / #4 / #3 / #2 / #1