There are the essential albums that need to be in everyone's collection. There are the personal favorites, the ones that aren't highly acclaimed but still get played every once in a while. And then there are the albums that you stick in the back of your collection because you want to forget that you spent money on them. "Own It or Disown It" gives the writer the opportunity to look at such discarded albums and determine if they are diamonds in the rough or if they deserve to be used as mini-frisbees.
So. This album. First, though, I hope the holidays brought you much joy, and happy new year. This is the last week of the poorly thought out Owning Metacritic, and what a high score this album has. Illinoise (no, I’m not typing out the whole damn name) has a score of 90 on Metacritic. Other albums that have a score of 90 include Original Pirate Material by the Streets, What Were You Hoping For? by Van Hunt, XTRMNTR by Primal Scream, and Is This It? by the Strokes. Before I get into my major problem with this album, though, we need to discuss Tropic Thunder.
Tropic Thunder is a great film, but its biggest flaws are hard to pin down due to several mitigating factors, and it wasn’t until Down In Front took a look at it that the film’s most egregious error came into focus. It wasn’t Robert Downey Jr. (no relation) in blackface, or the entire idea of Simple Jack—it was the early scene in which Damien Cockburn, the director who was desperate to get his film in the can, stepped on a land mine. The subsequent minute or so in which Ben Stiller’s character plays with what remains of Cockburn’s head is both dark and disgusting, and starts the film’s main plot on the wrong foot. If you didn’t enjoy the scene, you had to try to put it out of your mind if you were to enjoy the rest of the film. If you did enjoy the scene, you may have been let down when the film never went to the same dark place again.
And so it is with my favorite song on Illinoise, “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.” A gorgeously written and composed song, Sufjan pulls no punches in conveying the tragedy of Gacy and his victims. I’d put it up there with anything Will Oldham has ever written. It’s dark shit, and had Sufjan written an album full of songs on par with “Gacy”, I might have a very different opinion of it. Sufjan, however, never comes close to exploring the same sort of dark space that occupies “Gacy” (“The Seer’s Tower” is the only other track on Illinoise that could be considered a downer), and the song, though incredible, ultimately feels out of place in Illinoise. I don’t think I’m the only one who got halfway through “Decatur” (Sufjan’s excuse to have dumb fun finding words that rhyme with its title) and wondered, “Are we just supposed to forget about the little boys under his floorboards?”
This is part of the biggest problem with Sufjan Stevens—he can write and compose so many great songs, and yet he can’t make a good album. Removing “Gacy” from the album, the first four tracks of Illinois (would) consist of two short songs that may as well be instrumentals (“Concerning The Ufo…” and “Black Hawk War”), an upbeat indie-pop crowd-pleaser (“Illinoise”), and a slower indie-pop crowd-pleaser (“Jacksonville”) . The next four tracks consist of two short instrumentals (“A Short Reprise…” and “One Last…”), a slower indie-pop crowd-pleaser (“Decatur”) , and an upbeat indie-pop crowd pleaser (“Chicago”). The next four tracks consist of two short songs that may as well be instrumentals (“To The Workers…” and “Prairie Fire…”), a slower indie-pop crowd-pleaser (“Casimir Pulaski Day”), and an upbeat indie-pop crowd-pleaser (“The Man of Metropolis…”). Care to guess what the next four tracks consist of?
I’d be more forgiving if Illinoise wasn’t so damn long—it clocks in at 74 minutes, and I can’t imagine how any sane person would be able to listen to the whole thing in one sitting of their own free will. I’ve praised longer albums, but Illinois has one note (well, two, but the other note is “Gacy”), and it doesn’t sustain itself for its entire runtime. I can’t deny that some of Illinoise’s tracks are outstanding and demand to be heard, but getting through the actual album is a chore. At least the kindergarten girls who rapped over “Night Zombies” tried something different—and that’s more than I can say about Sufjan.
VERDICT: DISOWN
Thank you for putting up with this extended bit of nonsense. Next week, I look at an album that includes music by a yoga instructor, an Olympian, an alcoholic, and George Clooney's girlfriend. Don't act like you're not intrigued...
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