When I was obsessed with Red Sox baseball in the 2000s, we had a player named Manny Ramirez who was talented as fuck and arguably the best pure hitter of his generation. He was a natural. BUT, it was almost as if he was so fricking good that just playing the game straight like everyone else bored him. He was so bloody talented that we gladly put up with his idiosyncrasies and quirks and would just shrug that it was just “Manny being Manny.” But you always knew that he could have been an all time great and sure-fire Hall of Famer. He was the type of ball player who gave fans a fatal case of the if onlys…
Well that’s sort of how I approach Sufjan. A glitch electronica vanity project as his second album? yup. Label a SIXTY minute album an “EP”? Sure! Why not! And forget concept albums. So plebeian. Let’s just go for the concept discography! And then release yet another vanity project, this time an entirely instrumental orchestral musical piece, while everyone is waiting with bated breath for the follow up to your first commercial success? Sounds like a great idea! God know he’s talented as fuck, but Sufjan has me searching for a word more extreme than megalomania.
When I drop the needle down on every “proper” Sufjan album, I always have the same response - “This is going to be the best fucking album EVER!” And then at some point a patch of tedium hits (length may vary). Because they all pretty much scream “genius is about to happen” before screaming “where the fuck is the editor, can somebody just find me a goddamn editor”.
Go ahead! Tell me that he didn’t start his own record label - Asthmatic Kitty - just so he could do whatever the hell he wanted. At least he’s self-aware enough that he knows he’s a prima donna who feels that every whim should be recorded and given the multimedia DVD package. (tbh, the BQE album itself wasn’t bad at all.) Anyways, before anyone tries to edit this nonsense, here’s my list…
The Masterpiece
Michigan
The Consistent, Or, Neither of these is essential, But just super solid listens!
A Sun Came (His only album that sucks me in deeper as it progresses)
Seven Swans (Lacks the creative peaks of the best songs on Michigan, Illinois, & Age of Adz)
Almost Perfect - The Overlong, Or, One of these is essential for THE Indie Rock record collection, Take your pick!
Illinois
Age of Adz
The Vanity Projects
BQE (Oddly enough perhaps his most consistent album!!!)
Enjoy Your Rabbit
The Outtakes Album that should have been even longer!
Avalanches
As with most megalomaniacs, he exhausted me in the end so I gave up on his “EP” and those Christmas albums for now.
NickVolosSegnahc Reve4Profile Land of the Argonauts, Centaurs and other such creatures
^^^
Well said RM... 👏 Don't give up on his EP... 😄 _________________ "And can’t you see you’re in on it?
You were born though you need not
And is that not some cause
For worship, being born among these trees?"
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