Ever hear of Pitchfork Media? Hipsters and musicians alike hail it as the flagship source for online indie music coverage. It began with Ryan Schreiber, fresh from the 1995 high school ranks, launching an online music publication and developing the company's reputation for underground coverage and distinctly florid reviews. It's also quite controversial: the company's immense influence on the indie genre makes it a gatekeeper to success. The publication has also come under scrutiny for being overly fond of particular genres and music that defies genre completely (often not in a good way). I like Pitchfork, but in my experience they evaluate music based more off artistic merit and achievement than pleasure and listenability.
Every year the site releases an influential list, its compilation of the best 50 albums of the year. And whether by self-propagated inertia or sheer power of prediction, they do a darn good job of determining what's going to become popular in indie cliques. If you missed this year's Grammys, the award for Album of the Year went to Arcade Fire for The Suburbs. The Blogosphere and Twitterverse were a funny sight in the wake of the ceremony, with half of the posts hailing a victory for "good music" and half wondering who the band was. Pitchfork knew. They'd named Arcade Fire's debut album, Funeral, the best of 2004. The Grammy winner was featured at #11 on 2010's Top 50 list.
So there exists a bit of a quandary. Pitchfork does highlight skilled, innovative, and exciting acts, but they're often diluted and obscured by offerings that reflect talent but rebuff taste. In light of that, I've spent the last few weeks listening to the Top 50 Albums of 2010 list and working to distill a list of songs that are both meritable and enjoyable.
It was difficult, but I pared my favorites down into a top 20. They represent bands I've long been familiar with and others that I heard for the first time. Over a series of posts, I'll break the list down and discuss what sticks out to me about each number. I promise that if you follow me through this you'll be able to bear your weight in any discussion on "the modern scene." Exciting, I know.
Today: #20
Sufjan Stevens- "Age of Adz"
Album: The Age of Adz
Pitchfork Review: 8.4/10
Album Rank (1-50): 25
Album Artwork
About the Artist
Sufjan Stevens, 35-year old composer from Detroit, is known for his lush orchestrations, large touring band, and oddly titled Facebook fan group, "Sufjan Stevens was probably conceived by unicorns." After graduating from a small Michigan college, he was accepted into graduate school at New York City's The New School, a prestigious institution best known for housing Parsons The New School of Design. The school has a list of "notable alumni" longer than a sumo wrestler's grocery list, and Stevens will undoubtedly be added to it after his 2005 Album, Come on Feel the Illinoise, reached #1 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart.
About the Album
Fans expecting a sense of continuity between Illinoise and Age of Adz are bound for disappointment. Horns, violin, and banjo play second fiddle to ominous synthesizers and drum machines, and no track matches the triumphant spirit of "Chicago," the lead single off Illinoise and arguably the best Sufjan song ever. The fact that this album succeeds in spite of abandoning all the elements that made its predecessor successful speaks to Sufjan's brilliant use of concept, in my opinion his greatest strength. Come on Feel the Illinoise was the second installment in a semi-serious endeavor to release an album dedicated to each of the 50 states. He could have released a third in the series, and it would have been easy, easy money. Instead, for Age of Adz, he developed a new concept entirely.
The album artwork is more than a little strange. I'd describe the prominent figure as a crayon-colored psychedelic sultan-spaceman silhouette. If that sounds a little out there, good, because the man who painted it was. His name was Royal Robertson, a Louisiana artist who passed away in 1997. Robertson was a paranoid schizophrenic who regularly experienced hallucinations born from the collision of his religion, Christianity, and his preoccupation, prophesy and science fiction. After his wife left for Texas with their 11 children, Robertson became consumed with documenting his visions and used whatever media were available, cardboard, magic markers, and tempura paint, to realize them.
Age of Adz is an aural experience derived from Robertson's visuals. No melodic ballads? Strained chords wrought with tension and dissonance? AUTOTUNE!?! It's a strange sonic palette, but Sufjan works with it very well. In the Age of Adz, excess and frivolity have been replaced by apocalyptic discord, confusion and decay, and this is how it sounds.
About the Song:
The album is brilliant both for its concept and execution, and no song better exhibits this tandem than the title track, "Age of Adz." At 8 minutes, it's the longest song on this countdown by far. From the get-go, disparate timbres swirl around a single voice bellowing a simple melody. Stability is non-existent. I can't identify 1 instrument or sound that holds pitch for at least a half measure. Like a metaphor for Robertson's perception of reality, everything trills about in chaos yet is somehow tethered and guided by an otherworldy creator of questionable intent. "This is the age of Adz," Sufjan declares, "Eternal living!" Should I really be happy about that? The irony works, but only because the music achieves its intended tone. Sufjan tiptoes the line a bit with these offerings, at times sacrificing listenability to pursue some particular abstraction, but this one is a distinguished compromise.
I saw Sufjan in Copenhagen May 1st, and he summarized the album's lineup a little more simply. "These," he said, "are my space jams." He blurs the line between "out of this world" and "out of his mind" a few times, but there's little doubt that Sufjan has an excellent creative mind and has mastered the tools to express his ideas. Even if you don't particularly enjoy the finished product, what more can you really ask from an artist than that?
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