watching bryan struggling and confused during impossible soul (possibly my favorite song ever) was honestly the highlight of my day. 10/10 as always with the consistently thoughtful analysis and reflection
age of adz is one of my favorite songs, sufjan's voice and the melody and lyrics are heartachingly beautiful and the ending especially i find immensely soothing... i've listened to this song on repeat for hours and it never once fails to make me emotional in a way that invokes sadness, but the fact that it sounds so beautiful makes the pain enjoyable... this is a quality all of his music has for me, and why i love it so much. I think if you let your ears get used to it a bit you might get more out of it than you did just now.
Something to remember about Sufjan is that he has a few distinct sounds that he tends to play around in. He does stripped back indie folk, electronic music, AND orchestral works. Most albums tend to have those separated, but then, occasionally, you'll get an album like Age Of Adz that throws them all into the mix. Sufjan is unlike others imo, in that when you hear strings say, it's probably a part he composed himself and handed to real strings players, rather than it being sampled for the hell of it, or outsourced to someone else. And I definitely appreciate the knowledge and skill that must take lol
9:40 JESUS CHRIST finally someone who feels the exact thing i do. this ambience is so rough, unpolished. however bryan you are wrong for counting and not feeling the emotion. it is not in 7 and it will never be. it;s in a special scale i like to call chaotic suffering
This is maybe my favorite (or second favorite) Sufjan album, I love the textural dissonance all throughout the record and it hit me emotionally like nothing else has. However, if you were a fan of Shit Talk I recommend you listen to the whole Javelin album, which might also be my favorite album from his, tied with this one. It still has electronic elements, but it is one of the best folk albums I've listened to, in my opinion. Would love a Javelin eventually, or from some songs from that album!
I genuinely believe this album to be Sufjan's masterwork and one of the greatest albums of all time. Of course, this is only a conclusion I reached after years with the material, but nonetheless, I appreciate hearing your thoughts.
A few additional notes for context. Besides what I mentioned in the Discord server about internalised homophobia being a potential theme (which I feel provides a great connective line to the songs), one important thing to keep in mind about Sufjan through the writing and recording process of Age of Adz is that he was dealing with illness. This is more directly addressed on Too Much, I Want to be Well and the "stupid man" section from Impossible Soul, but I believe it's a constant through the album. In fact, I'd argue all the noisiness and echoey production and timbral choices on the album are meant to represent how illness affected his everyday life, including his relationship with others, with music and with himself. Here's a quote regarding what he was going through that illustrates very well why I feel this adds a whole other dimension to the album as a whole: “It was really confusing and catastrophic in a lot of ways because it was a virus I had that affected my nervous system and I no longer had control of my responses to circumstances and events. I had this hyper-adrenaline and was in chronic pain. I had to go and see neurologists and physical therapists and do all of these tests. The nervous system, the brain and spinal cord are so mysterious, profound and beyond our understanding. When you’re not well and your body has these traumatic responses to illness, it takes so long to recover from that and have your body restore itself. It took months and months and months. It was really bizarre.”
Impossible Soul almost broke Bryan lol. I have a love/hate relationship with this album. Depending on my mood, the intentional ugliness of the music may seem either beautiful or unbearable to me. I love, LOVE the last song though. It's very repetitive, yeah, but I listen to a lot of techno music where repetition is kind of the focal point so I don't mind it at all. It's trance-inducing and sometimes I wish it was even longer.
I'm gonna leave a few comments focused on specific songs. FUTILE DEVICES (+ the final section of IMPOSSIBLE SOUL): The album is bookended by acoustic-driven, soft, folk sections fiilled with hushed vocals and an overall warm atmosphere. These work in two ways imo, in Futile Devices in particular it's a way on easing into the record considering this sound harkens back to Sufjan's previous three albums, specially the more pastoral moments of Michigan and Illinois, and most of Seven Swans which is fully rooted on indie folk. Both are great examples of Sufjan's more intimate, minimal songwriting. This is a style he went back to in the follow-up to Age of Adz (Carrie & Lowell, the one where Fourth of July comes from) and I feel it's a neat coincidence that this album not only begins with a remnant of the past (which feels quite intentional) but also hints at the future probably without Sufjan knowing it at the time. This song also works as a way of establishing a bit of a mundane, quiet feel that gets shattered by the time we get into the next track and the album just doesn't let go. TOO MUCH: This is a song that I rarely listen to outside of the album, and it's probably my second favourite song (behind Bad Communication), but that's just because this album is so good that most of it feels better for me. I still like how it introduces the overall sound, style and themes of the record, and I've always been impressed by those first twenty-something seconds of sheer noise and bleeps and whoops at the start. It's such an uncompromising way to present your new sound to the listener, but also considering these sounds seems to evoke illness and that's a backdrop to the whole album, it makes sense that this is the first thing you listen in the first proper song here. It's disruptive nature works so well after the pastoral Futile Devices because imo it also showcases how illness can shake your whole life all of a sudden, unexpectedly, without any warning. It's meant to be jarring. AGE OF ADZ: Outside of Impossible Soul (which I feel is its own entity honestly), this is tied with I Want to Be Well as my favourite song on the album. I really enjoyed your take on it as an anti-anthem! Specially because this is one of the songs that I've always found pretty interesting from a "dealing with internalized homophobia" perspective. Imo this song is about a relationship with oneself rather than a song about a relationship with another (though I feel it works either way), about discovering your own queerness and dealing with it. It's once against set against the backdrop of painful illness (the lines "I've lost the will to fight, I wasn't made for life" are just as heartbreaking if you consider chronic pain and anxiety developing into suicidal ideation as it is when you think about "losing the will" to pretend to be who you aren't in order to fit basically building into the same thing too). I completely agree with you about the whole outro getting progressively more stripped down being a moment of clarity. I feel the narrator ends up accepting themselves by the end, or at least accepting that they have stuff to deal with but in a more positive way, because they reach a point of prioritizing self-love and self-care. I WALKED: I don't really have much to comment here. This is probably the most straightforward song on the album. But I really dig the atmosphere. It feels as if it could have almost been a single. And it hints at the more focused, poppy take on electronica that he would explore on another future record, The Ascension. NOW THAT I'M OLDER: This one took a while to grow on me, but I've learnt to appreciated. I guess it's because now I'm older lol I really enjoyed your take on this one, specially the travelling metaphor by the end. Again, not much to add, I'll only mention that choral work and heavy vocal layering in general are mainstays on Sufjan's work, even on the folkier end of things. I wouldn't be surprised if his religious upbringing has something to do with that. Illinois and Michigan also feature a lot of choir work, even if more rooted in indie tradition rather than a classic(al) one. I'll come back later with more stuff, sorry for the block of text lol
Thanks so much for this. Great insight on the intro to Too Much and the general insight to Age of Adz. I'm sure this album gets a lot better as you learn about Sufjan. Which makes a lot of sense since even not knowing a lot about him I still understood this to be a personal work that acts as a milestone in his life; a monument to who he was at the time and where he wanted to go, who he wanted to be.
2:28:10 these are feeler codes. i get most of the things he tries to convey non verbally, however there are also moments of jibberish, meant to throw off the listener. or maybe there is not. you are right that its a him experience. now imortalised
The only Sufjan Stevens album I like, and it’s one of the greatest albums I have ever heard. Much like Wilco’s A Ghost is Born, the masterpieces unfortunately come out during an artist’s most trying and difficult times.
watching bryan struggling and confused during impossible soul (possibly my favorite song ever) was honestly the highlight of my day. 10/10 as always with the consistently thoughtful analysis and reflection
age of adz is one of my favorite songs, sufjan's voice and the melody and lyrics are heartachingly beautiful and the ending especially i find immensely soothing... i've listened to this song on repeat for hours and it never once fails to make me emotional in a way that invokes sadness, but the fact that it sounds so beautiful makes the pain enjoyable... this is a quality all of his music has for me, and why i love it so much.
I think if you let your ears get used to it a bit you might get more out of it than you did just now.
I agree about getting used to it. It's a unique sound and not something most people could "get" on a first listen.
Something to remember about Sufjan is that he has a few distinct sounds that he tends to play around in. He does stripped back indie folk, electronic music, AND orchestral works. Most albums tend to have those separated, but then, occasionally, you'll get an album like Age Of Adz that throws them all into the mix.
Sufjan is unlike others imo, in that when you hear strings say, it's probably a part he composed himself and handed to real strings players, rather than it being sampled for the hell of it, or outsourced to someone else.
And I definitely appreciate the knowledge and skill that must take lol
9:40 JESUS CHRIST finally someone who feels the exact thing i do. this ambience is so rough, unpolished. however bryan you are wrong for counting and not feeling the emotion. it is not in 7 and it will never be. it;s in a special scale i like to call chaotic suffering
This is maybe my favorite (or second favorite) Sufjan album, I love the textural dissonance all throughout the record and it hit me emotionally like nothing else has. However, if you were a fan of Shit Talk I recommend you listen to the whole Javelin album, which might also be my favorite album from his, tied with this one. It still has electronic elements, but it is one of the best folk albums I've listened to, in my opinion. Would love a Javelin eventually, or from some songs from that album!
WOW! What a wonderful album to react to :)
I genuinely believe this album to be Sufjan's masterwork and one of the greatest albums of all time. Of course, this is only a conclusion I reached after years with the material, but nonetheless, I appreciate hearing your thoughts.
A few additional notes for context. Besides what I mentioned in the Discord server about internalised homophobia being a potential theme (which I feel provides a great connective line to the songs), one important thing to keep in mind about Sufjan through the writing and recording process of Age of Adz is that he was dealing with illness. This is more directly addressed on Too Much, I Want to be Well and the "stupid man" section from Impossible Soul, but I believe it's a constant through the album. In fact, I'd argue all the noisiness and echoey production and timbral choices on the album are meant to represent how illness affected his everyday life, including his relationship with others, with music and with himself.
Here's a quote regarding what he was going through that illustrates very well why I feel this adds a whole other dimension to the album as a whole: “It was really confusing and catastrophic in a lot of ways because it was a virus I had that affected my nervous system and I no longer had control of my responses to circumstances and events. I had this hyper-adrenaline and was in chronic pain. I had to go and see neurologists and physical therapists and do all of these tests. The nervous system, the brain and spinal cord are so mysterious, profound and beyond our understanding. When you’re not well and your body has these traumatic responses to illness, it takes so long to recover from that and have your body restore itself. It took months and months and months. It was really bizarre.”
Impossible Soul almost broke Bryan lol. I have a love/hate relationship with this album. Depending on my mood, the intentional ugliness of the music may seem either beautiful or unbearable to me. I love, LOVE the last song though. It's very repetitive, yeah, but I listen to a lot of techno music where repetition is kind of the focal point so I don't mind it at all. It's trance-inducing and sometimes I wish it was even longer.
I'm gonna leave a few comments focused on specific songs.
FUTILE DEVICES (+ the final section of IMPOSSIBLE SOUL): The album is bookended by acoustic-driven, soft, folk sections fiilled with hushed vocals and an overall warm atmosphere. These work in two ways imo, in Futile Devices in particular it's a way on easing into the record considering this sound harkens back to Sufjan's previous three albums, specially the more pastoral moments of Michigan and Illinois, and most of Seven Swans which is fully rooted on indie folk. Both are great examples of Sufjan's more intimate, minimal songwriting. This is a style he went back to in the follow-up to Age of Adz (Carrie & Lowell, the one where Fourth of July comes from) and I feel it's a neat coincidence that this album not only begins with a remnant of the past (which feels quite intentional) but also hints at the future probably without Sufjan knowing it at the time. This song also works as a way of establishing a bit of a mundane, quiet feel that gets shattered by the time we get into the next track and the album just doesn't let go.
TOO MUCH: This is a song that I rarely listen to outside of the album, and it's probably my second favourite song (behind Bad Communication), but that's just because this album is so good that most of it feels better for me. I still like how it introduces the overall sound, style and themes of the record, and I've always been impressed by those first twenty-something seconds of sheer noise and bleeps and whoops at the start. It's such an uncompromising way to present your new sound to the listener, but also considering these sounds seems to evoke illness and that's a backdrop to the whole album, it makes sense that this is the first thing you listen in the first proper song here. It's disruptive nature works so well after the pastoral Futile Devices because imo it also showcases how illness can shake your whole life all of a sudden, unexpectedly, without any warning. It's meant to be jarring.
AGE OF ADZ: Outside of Impossible Soul (which I feel is its own entity honestly), this is tied with I Want to Be Well as my favourite song on the album. I really enjoyed your take on it as an anti-anthem! Specially because this is one of the songs that I've always found pretty interesting from a "dealing with internalized homophobia" perspective. Imo this song is about a relationship with oneself rather than a song about a relationship with another (though I feel it works either way), about discovering your own queerness and dealing with it. It's once against set against the backdrop of painful illness (the lines "I've lost the will to fight, I wasn't made for life" are just as heartbreaking if you consider chronic pain and anxiety developing into suicidal ideation as it is when you think about "losing the will" to pretend to be who you aren't in order to fit basically building into the same thing too). I completely agree with you about the whole outro getting progressively more stripped down being a moment of clarity. I feel the narrator ends up accepting themselves by the end, or at least accepting that they have stuff to deal with but in a more positive way, because they reach a point of prioritizing self-love and self-care.
I WALKED: I don't really have much to comment here. This is probably the most straightforward song on the album. But I really dig the atmosphere. It feels as if it could have almost been a single. And it hints at the more focused, poppy take on electronica that he would explore on another future record, The Ascension.
NOW THAT I'M OLDER: This one took a while to grow on me, but I've learnt to appreciated. I guess it's because now I'm older lol I really enjoyed your take on this one, specially the travelling metaphor by the end. Again, not much to add, I'll only mention that choral work and heavy vocal layering in general are mainstays on Sufjan's work, even on the folkier end of things. I wouldn't be surprised if his religious upbringing has something to do with that. Illinois and Michigan also feature a lot of choir work, even if more rooted in indie tradition rather than a classic(al) one.
I'll come back later with more stuff, sorry for the block of text lol
Thanks so much for this. Great insight on the intro to Too Much and the general insight to Age of Adz. I'm sure this album gets a lot better as you learn about Sufjan. Which makes a lot of sense since even not knowing a lot about him I still understood this to be a personal work that acts as a milestone in his life; a monument to who he was at the time and where he wanted to go, who he wanted to be.
2:28:10 these are feeler codes. i get most of the things he tries to convey non verbally, however there are also moments of jibberish, meant to throw off the listener. or maybe there is not. you are right that its a him experience. now imortalised
The only Sufjan Stevens album I like, and it’s one of the greatest albums I have ever heard. Much like Wilco’s A Ghost is Born, the masterpieces unfortunately come out during an artist’s most trying and difficult times.
i am instantly a fan of any experimental musician. if only you could see my stank face
Sufjan is such a musical genius
Complicated but good stuff.
43:30 I really liked that analogy! 😂
This album has always made me think Sufjan wanted to channel some The Mars Volta, at least in the attitude of the music.
I can totally hear that
Love this album but, not an easy one to absorb in a first listen to say the least. Hope to make it through your 4 and a half hours
I love Sufjan Stevens!!!
Lets gooooo
This is a great album, it has some of Sufjan's best music, but probably my least favorite Sufjan album
Hi, I like the album. But your reaction is split into so many pieces I can't jump onto a specific one. Yet I admire your work on this.
When you click '...more' to open the video description and scroll down a tiny bit, it's much more easy to navigate the chapters.
OHHHH