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CASTLE
I've often prevaricated and said that Carrie and Lowell and Michigan tie for my favourite Sufjan Stevens album (and indeed my favourite album of all time) - but in truth Michigan is the gun-to-my-head winner. It makes me believe in goodness.
Ranking the songs is to make meaningless distinctions and may very well be a pointless exercise. But I've done it (tried to do it) here anyway.
Our Grampa bought us a new VCR
We watched it all night
We grew up in spite of it
We watched it all night
We grew up in spite of it
1. Vito's Ordination Song
2. For the Widows in Paradise, for the Fatherless in Ypsilanti
3. Romulus
4. Oh God, Where Are You Now? (In Pickerel Lake? Pigeon? Marquette? Mackinaw?)
5. The Upper Peninsula
6. Flint (For the Unemployed and Underpaid)
7. All Good Naysayers, Speak Up! Or Forever Hold Your Peace
8. Sleeping Bear, Sault Saint Marie
9. Redford (For Yia-Yia & Pappou)
10. Holland
11. Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head! (Rebuild! Restore! Reconsider!)
12. Alanson, Crooked River
13. Tahquamenon Falls
14. Say Yes! to M!ch!gan!
15. They Also Mourn Who Do Not Wear Black (For the Homeless in Muskegon)
Interestingly I was able to form a preference heirarchy for C&L with much less difficulty than for Michigan. I had no hesitations at all about my favourite and least-favourite few, but ranking the others took much longer. 'Eugene' was the most difficult to place. It is maybe the sparsest track musically, but I am very attached to the lyrics.
Since I was old enough to speak
I've said it with alarm
Some part of me was lost in your sleeve
Where you hid your cigarettes
No, I'll never forget
I just want to be near you
The past is still the past, the bridge to nowhere
Make the most of your life
While it is rife
While it is light
1. The Only Thing
2. Should Have Known Better
3. No Shade in the Shadow of The Cross
4. Eugene
5. Fourth of July
6. Death with Dignity
7. Drawn to the Blood
8. Blue Bucket of Gold
9. All of Me Wants All of You
10. John My Beloved
11. Carrie and Lowell
This album comes a very close third. 'To Be Alone with You' was the first Sufjan song I ever listened to, probably when I was about thirteen, and 'Sister' is a strong contender for my favourite Sufjan song of all time. This list more so than any other will be subject to revision I think, as for a long time Seven Swans was one of my least listened-to Sufjan albums. Although that is changing.
What the water wants is hurricanes
And sailboats to ride on its back
What the water wants is sun kiss
And land to run in to and back
1. Sister
2. To Be Alone with You
3. Seven Swans
4. Abraham
5. The Dress Looks Nice on You
6. A Good Man is Hard to Find
7. All the Trees of the Field Will CLap Their Hands
8. In the Devil's Territory
9. We Won't Need Legs to Stand
1o. He Woke Me Up Again
11. The Transfiguration
12. Size Too Small
This often tops out at Sufjan's most highly rated album... but in my opinion what's good about it (high concept, texture, effusiveness, vulnerability) is actually done to much greater effect on Michigan. It is fourth for me. Ranking the songs was quite difficult, firstly because there are so many of them, and secondly because so many are short instrumental breaks (these are mostly clustered towards the bottom, even though they are of course essential to the whole). I am especially fond on the song 'Concerning the UFO Sighting near Highland, Illinois'.
Oh the glory when he took our place
But he took my shoulders and he shook my face
And he takes and he takes and he takes
1. Casimir Pulaski Day
2. Concerning the UFO Sighting near Highland, Illinois
3. John Wayne Gacy, Jr.
4. Jacksonville
5. The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!
6. Chicago
7.To the Workers of the Rock River Valley Region, I Have an Idea Concerning Your Predicament, and It Involves Tube Socks, a Paper Airplane, and Twenty-Two Able-Bodied Men
8. The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders" (Part I: The Great Frontier – Part II: Come to Me Only with Playthings Now)
9. In This Temple as in the Hearts of Man for Whom He Saved the Earth
10. The Seer's Tower
11. A Conjunction of Drones Simulating the Way in Which Sufjan Stevens Has an Existential Crisis in the Great Godfrey Maze
12. The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts
13. They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhhh!
14. Riffs and Variations on a Single Note for Jelly Roll, Earl Hines, Louis Armstrong, Baby Dodds, and the King of Swing, to Name a Few
15. Out of Egypt, into the Great Laugh of Mankind, and I Shake the Dirt from My Sandals as I Run
16. Prairie Fire That Wanders About
17. Come On! Feel the Illinoise!" (Part I: The World's Columbian Exposition – Part II: Carl Sandburg Visits Me in a Dream)
18. Decatur, or, Round of Applause for Your Stepmother!
19.The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience but You're Going to Have to Leave Now, or, 'I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Them Until They Are Off Our Lands!
20. A Short Reprise for Mary Todd, Who Went Insane, but for Very Good Reasons
21. Let's Hear That String Part Again, Because I Don't Think They Heard It All the Way Out in Bushnell
22. One Last "Whoo-hoo!" for the Pullman
IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER
Sister
The Dress Looks Nice on You
Concerning the UFO Sighting near Highland, Illinois
Wallowa Lake Monster
Futile Devices
Vito's Ordination Song
The Owl and the Tanager
No Shade in the Shadow of The Cross
Should Have Known Better
The Only Thing
Sufjan Stevens - Sister
What the water wants is hurricanes
And sailboats to ride on its back
What the water wants is sun kiss
And land to run into and back
I have a fish stone burning my elbow
Reminding me to know that I'm glad
That I have a bottle filled with my old teeth
They fell out like a tear in the bag
And I have a sister somewhere in Detroit
She has black hair and small hands
And I have a kettledrum
I'll hit the earth with you
And I will crochet you a hat
And I have a red kite
I'll put you right in it
I'll show you the sky
Rachmaninoff – All-night Vigil (Vespers), op. 37. Divine choral music. [Valery Polyansky]
Magazine's Real Life: a dear favourite, a desert island disc, the most purely fun album I have ever listened to... but I take issue with the track order. Ultimately, I think the album should chart the increasing mania of John McGeoch's guitar which climaxes with the triumphant punching-the-air 'The Light Pours Out of Me' - one of the greatest songs of all time. For this reason, it should so obviously be the closer, and 'Parade' the opener (it has a great fade-in). 'Shot By Both Sides' is like the proto-'The Light Pours Out of Me', and I have made this the penultimate track. 'Definitive Gaze' also makes a great B-side opener. A little shuffling has also been done in the middle, to a smaller effect. My reordering:
Side A
1. Parade
2. Motorcade
3. The Great Beautician in the Sky
4.Recoil
Side B
5. Definitive Gaze
6. My Tulpa
7. Burst
8. Shot By Both Sides
9. The Light Pours Out of Me
Gavin Bryars - Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet
David Bowie - Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud
Healey Willan- Fair in Face (Choir of St John's, Elora)
The first time I listened to Virgins was 9th May 2020. I was stunned and raptured and driven to Hecker evangelism. In my head it is inextricable from the image of geomagnetic reversal and the subsequent breaking-up of the Van Allen radiation belt. However, I always hold off adding artist to my All-Time Favourites list until I come down from that initial 'high' of discovering a new artist and can appraise a bit more coolly. But upon re-listening, no, I was right the first time - it is exceptional. So is Ravedeath 1972, Konoyo, Radio Amor...(I can't recommend Konoyo enough, it seems to go a bit under-appreciated).
I think there is a strong case that he is the most purely talented artist of the 21st century so far - in any genre. Yes, there have been some 'quite-good' indie bands and some hip hop artists who have done a bit of clever sampling, but nobody else commits space to stereo the way he does, and certainly not with his consistency over two decades. He rises above the fray. I like Mike Powell's review: '...Virgins feels possessed by the idea that no advancements in society or technology will ever shake our primal reactions to fear, wonder, awe and what in a more naïve era used to be called the sublime'.
Philip Jeck - Wholesome
Suicide - Surrender ('88 version)(2023 remaster)
These songs meant a lot to me when I was a teenager. They are strongly associated with two specific physical locations [the school toilets where I used to hide most break and lunch times] and [the long corridor at the Royal Free Hospital]. I believe they were released some time between 2013-2015 on SoundCloud, but achieved wider recognition when they were shared by the indie YouTube channel The Worst Taste in 2017, which I guess is how I stumbled on them. There the moniker 'Kaya' was used. I don't know whether she is still producing music, it's been quiet for a few years now. She was pretty cool though!
// - Stateless
I'm lost at sea
Don't bother looking for me
I'm lost inside
Don't bother shouting
I'm dressed in blue
And heaven has never felt so close
I'm all dressed up in blue
And darling, you've never felt so far
Because I'm stateless -
I'm nothing
I'm stateless -
Is that something?
I'll wait here for you
I wait for no one
// - //
Woke up now, it's time for school
Wash my face and brush my hair
Put on clothes and tie my shoes
Grab your lunch, there's lots to do
Another day another life
Another place, another time
Last night had a funny dream
This boy I loved was next to me
We kissed until the night went blue
He kissed my lips and said we're through
Another day another life
Another place another time
But what am I to do?
It's obvious, superfluous
It's what we'll do
I was counting on the two
But the lines run slow
You ask me why -
I just don't know
So maybe this is all a plan
You do what you've been given
But i've done everything they've said
Still feel like i haven't lived
Another day, another life
Another place, another time
But what am I to do?
It's obvious, superfluous
It's what we'll do
I was counting on the two
But the lines run slow
You ask me why -
I just don't know
The lines run slow
You ask me why -
I just don't know
// - Night Time
Tell me what you're doing here?
Insane asylums and yellow times
I've been dreaming of this day for my whole life
1. Karma Police
2. No Surprise
3. Lucky
4. Paranoid Android
5. Exit Music (For A Film)
6. Climbing Up the Walls
7. Fitter Happier
8. The Tourist
9. Let Down
10. Subterranean Homesick Alien
11. Electioneering
12. Airbag
1. All I Need
2. Reckoner
3. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
4. Nude
5. Jigsaw Falling Into Place
6. Videotape
7. House of Cards
8. Bodysnatchers
9. 15 Step
10. Faust Arp
Betelmire - 606 MPH
Romance - Bring My Baby Back Again (In My Hour of Weakness I Found A Sweetness)
Pure Dopamine - Nancy (Pure Dopamine EP)
Fairport Convention - I Don't Know Where I Stand
Snakefinger - The Model
Radio Cure - Wilco