AMG’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine makes makes his case against Sufjan Stevens:
His pretension — his convoluted song titles, his cloying song about Saul Bellow, his adolescent fascination with John Wayne Gacy, Jr. — all comes across like a precocious high school student in his senior year, where he’s smug enough to want to prove that he’s smarter than the rest of the school. Appropriately, his lyrics often read like the work of a gifted but sheltered high schooler, and his music sounds like a drama student’s idea of a pop opera — and it’s all wrapped up on albums with stylized childish artwork, hand-drawn pictures that inadvertently wind up enforcing the impression that Stevens is an overgrown teenager.
I think Erlewine generally misses the point on Sufjan’s music, especially with regards to the man’s lyrics. Sufjan’s songs are not nearly as precocious, insular, or merely charming for charm’s sake as Erlewine seems to think they are. If you dig just a wee bit past the orchestral trappings and arrangements, you’ll see the threads of compassion and faith that provide the heart of Sufjan’s finest work. Threads that are positively glowing with honesty and warmth, moreso than most folks’ music these days.
(Andy Whitman makes some lovely related points in his Sufjan-related blog entry.)
These threads are why Sufjan’s music resonates with people so much, whether they think about it or not. These songs tell stories, oftentimes in only a whisper, of sin, guilt, redemption, hope, blood, death, man, God, the devil, salvation, hubris, and humility. Sure, it’s flowery. Probably a touch too flowery at times. But, as Erlewine suggests, “insular” and “alienating”? Whaaaa?!?
Perhaps Erlewine can explain why I’ve often found myself listening to Sufjan’s music with eyes rimmed with tears and lips a-tremble. I doubt it’s because of the alienating nature of Sufjan’s music, but rather because one of Sufjan’s so-called “cutesy” turns of phrase has just hit me where I live, cut through the clutter, and delivered a wee bit of Truth about this little human condition we have here.
However, I do think Erlewine’s piece does inadvertently raise a good question: Has Sufjan worked himself into a rut, musically-speaking? Not yet, methinks, but after three sizable releases that, while quite different in many ways, have essentially mined much of the same “baroque folk-pop” territory time and again, perhaps it is time for Sufjan to move on to other styles, arrangements, and instruments (the man only plays 23 or so — what a slacker).
Sufjan is very good at wringing out gorgeously hushed pop pieces full of orchestral arrangements and elaborate choral singalongs, but it’d be a shame if that’s all he ever sticks with. Simply put, he’s too good a songwriter to allow himself to get stuck in any rut.
While I can’t necessarily picture Sufjan releasing, say, a hardcore punk album in the future (though I wouldn’t put it past him), I’d personally love to see him tackle electronic music again, a la Enjoy Your Rabbit. Or even better, get together with the Sounds Are Active crew and throw out some abstract hip-hop (replete with banjo and oboe, natch).
Sufjan and Soul-Junk?!? The mind is boggled!