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View Full Version : Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz


Buzzkill
10-04-2010, 02:32 PM
You can find it streaming on NPR, or download it here: http://www.demonoid.com/files/details/2396284/24968324/

You can also preorder it from his website: http://sufjanstevens.bandcamp.com/

Loving this album right now.

Seems like a mix between Radiohead, Fantasia (the Disney movie), Fleet Foxes, Kraftwerk and T-Pain. It is fucking epic. GET IT.

Please discuss your love of Sufjan Stevens here plz<object height="385" width="480">


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FakeLaser
10-04-2010, 05:00 PM
I like him kind of. Yr. description has convinced me to download this unit though.

ron the dial
10-04-2010, 05:03 PM
well it's about damn time. really looking forward to this.

Triple A
10-04-2010, 05:54 PM
I listened to it and it is good I think.

I have never really gotten that much into him. I listened to his albums like 1-2 times and then never felt like it again, but still have them "just in case" or something because I feel like maybe I would like it if I gave it more of a chance.

NE WAY "I Walked" is mad good and there were a couple other songs I <3d but don't remember. I think I like this album more than his others.

Buzzkill
10-04-2010, 06:07 PM
Illinois is a ridiculously good album. It took me a good 10 listens to really "get" it but it was one of those albums where every single song was my "favorite" for a while

Triple A
10-04-2010, 06:14 PM
I Walked is sooo good.

Triple A
10-04-2010, 11:38 PM
Listening to Illinois again now for like the first time in a year or two. Yeah this is mad good.

Blitz
10-05-2010, 12:06 AM
Seems like a mix between Radiohead, Fantasia (the Disney movie), Fleet Foxes, Kraftwerk and T-Pain.
Most pretentious way to describe an album I've ever heard, probably.

Buzzkill
10-08-2010, 12:27 AM
For real? Have you listened to the album? Was not meaning to be pretentious at all, it is just all over the place, and there's no real way to describe it other than something along those lines.

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Listen to this song and tell me that's not a good way to describe it... (there's no autotune in this one, only the last song, hence the T-Pain reference)

mitch_h
10-09-2010, 08:20 PM
Most pretentious way to describe an album I've ever heard, probably.

I'm guessing you don't read much music journalism then. It's not like he said the album combined african rhythms, proto-ragtime lyrics and polyphonic lithuanian folk music one of his professors exposed him to while studying abroad at the University of Heidelberg... or something.


Anyway, it took me a while to warm up to this album but I quite like it now, the title track is my favourite.

Blitz
10-15-2010, 01:54 AM
For real? Have you listened to the album? Was not meaning to be pretentious at all, it is just all over the place, and there's no real way to describe it other than something along those lines.
Nah not saying you were trying to be pretentious in describing it, or that it doesn't warrant that description. Just could completely see those words coming out of the mouth of some dude at a vegan pot luck in Williamsburg who wears glasses even though he doesn't need them and has fashionably tousled hair, wearing a scarf even though it's not nearly cold enough to require one who then goes on to the topic of how Fergie is great pop culture kitsch in the vein of Marilyn Monroe before grabbing his messenger bag and riding home on his bike to listen to all his Animal Collective albums in a row while finishing his paper on the homosexual undertones of John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China or something.

Anyways friends went to a Sufjan show tonight (I was supposed to go but had to bail due to school). Apparently it was kind of awful in that he stuck almost entirely to this album and his on stage banter made him sound like a giant hipster d-bag.

Triple A
10-15-2010, 03:58 AM
Good job Blitz you "nailed it"

Buzzkill
10-15-2010, 05:05 PM
Ok I see what you mean Blitz. I hate those ppl too, upset that I sounded like one there. I did tho :n:

El Vaquero de Infierno
10-15-2010, 05:47 PM
I'll probably save this album for xmas. But what i've heard i've liked.

FakeLaser
10-17-2010, 12:46 PM
Finally listened to this album. And it is good.

Buzzkill
10-17-2010, 01:58 PM
Loving Vesuvius, Impossible Soul, Age of Adz, and I Want to be Well

St. Jimmy
10-20-2010, 01:47 PM
He seems angry. I don't know how to feel about an angry Sufjan.

Blitz
10-20-2010, 03:30 PM
Surely there is some internet meme picture to convey your feelings!

Buzzkill
11-20-2010, 06:15 PM
<embed width="600" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" wmode="transparent" src="http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid401.photobucket.com/albums/pp94/theaudiopervjr/sufjanstevensfallon.mp4">

Damn, wish I hadn't watched this. Kind of hate him now

Blitz
11-21-2010, 11:56 PM
Yeah full on indy hipster D-bag mode right there.

I listened to this album a while ago. Not good. Impossible Soul would be a good song if it was no more than 6 or 7 minutes. Rest of the album is trash.

FakeLaser
11-22-2010, 06:29 AM
Yeah that video is horrible.

I Walked is the straight up jam though

Indifferent Clox
11-23-2010, 08:34 PM
Blitz you are so worried if something is too hipster to actually like things. Everytime someone brings someithing up you always talk about how hipster it is. Are you that selfinvolved in some sort of backwards ass race of being the least indie while still liking things that can possibly be indie> wtf? blitz I think you are as pretentious as anyone else here for sure.

Buzzkill
11-23-2010, 08:50 PM
Is it possible that he is so concerned about not being hipster that he is, in his own way, a hipster hipster?

Blitz
11-23-2010, 09:47 PM
Blitz you are so worried if something is too hipster to actually like things. Everytime someone brings someithing up you always talk about how hipster it is. Are you that selfinvolved in some sort of backwards ass race of being the least indie while still liking things that can possibly be indie> wtf? blitz I think you are as pretentious as anyone else here for sure.
lol buddy. I'm not concerned about being a hipster. I don't doubt that I have my share of hipsterish tendencies. Come on man. Watch that fucking video. That dude is up there in a suit that it looks like something Kesha rejected, with a pair of angel wings on his back, what looks to be a 12 piece band including backup dancers. It all looks like it was designed with a lot of stuff that would be weird for the sake of weird, or just to puff up a song that doesn't need it. All that shit is up there to disguise the fact that without the adornments, he'd just be another singer-songwriter. That's why I'm not a fan of that performance.

Hardcore hipsterdom is stupid, as is hardcore a lot of things. Read the post where I described what Buzzkill's description made me envision. I've met people like that, and they annoy the fuck out of me. There's nothing worse than talking music with someone who thinks they know it all when really, they're just trying to be contrary.

Call me pretentious if you like. Do you even know what the word means? When it comes to music, I'm a populist. I categorically admit that I enjoy songs from pretty much every genre, from mainstream pop to indie stuff. I will take a good 3 minute pop song over an overblown, 25 minute, play-every-instrument-but-the-kitchen-sink-because-we-can song. That's not a song. It's an experiment.

I like some Sufjan Stevens stuff. He's talented. I didn't care for this album. No doubt you wouldn't care for tons of stuff I listen to. I do not care, nor you should you. This is a forum, and I'm expressing an opinion, which some share, and others do not. So don't worry Clox. I'm not the first person to trash this album, and I'm sure Sufjan's not losing any sleep over it, so you don't have to either.

Buzzkill
11-23-2010, 10:45 PM
His outfit is fucking terribly obnoxious, but his dancing is what really gets me.

FakeLaser
11-24-2010, 07:33 AM
Yeah come on Clox, that video is terrible. And this is coming from Ariel Pink's biggest fan.

Indifferent Clox
11-24-2010, 01:35 PM
Io never watch videos really. I didn't watch this one. I wouldn't say I like this album as much as Illinoise but it's good. I am also sort of a populist I suppose but most of the time I enjoy the more experimental stuff. I mean if you had spent your whole life hearing classical and you heard pet sounds or say in the life you'd call that experimental, and in it's time it was. I guess I just like music that's different and easy to get lost in because even on second listen f you listen closely you'll be surprised. But hell I listen to me first and the gimme gummed, and I even like some garth Brooks and taking back sudays first album. I am probably a hipster but I admit it proudly. I'm not gonna lie and say that pitchfork doesn't help me find new music. It does. If that makes me a hipster so be it. I don't knock people for musical choices I just try to help people expand. Now some bands I don't like but I dontthink that makes me a hipster either. I dunno. I don't wear hipster clothes or
make fun of ppl for not being as 'cool' as me. I try to be nice to everyone I meet, that's just me. If you never heard me talk about music you d prolly not consider me a hipster.

mitchables
12-08-2010, 11:52 PM
so i spoke to him today for the magazine. it was a really good interview, but i thought buzzkill would be interested to know that i told him i'd seen his album described as you did above, with the fantasia references and t-pain and kraftwerk, etc. and he said "i think that's beautiful. i love that synopsis." and then went on an extended monologue about how kanye's hip hop is not pure hip hop but this blend of all these styles and he's going for a similar thing because this record was far more electronic than the last, etc etc. dunno, i'd have to listen back to the recording to tell you word for word. i can pm you the part of the interview if you wanna hear it straight from the horse's mouth.

also got him to wish my friend a happy birthday on tape, and he was super obliging about it. i just won the best birthday present ever awards.

Buzzkill
12-09-2010, 12:37 AM
so i spoke to him today for the magazine. it was a really good interview, but i thought buzzkill would be interested to know that i told him i'd seen his album described as you did above, with the fantasia references and t-pain and kraftwerk, etc. and he said "i think that's beautiful. i love that synopsis." and then went on an extended monologue about how kanye's hip hop is not pure hip hop but this blend of all these styles and he's going for a similar thing because this record was far more electronic than the last, etc etc. dunno, i'd have to listen back to the recording to tell you word for word. i can pm you the part of the interview if you wanna hear it straight from the horse's mouth.

also got him to wish my friend a happy birthday on tape, and he was super obliging about it. i just won the best birthday present ever awards.
That's fuckin awesome, yeah I'd love the whole thing.

FakeLaser
12-09-2010, 05:01 PM
That is incredible.

Indifferent Clox
12-09-2010, 06:36 PM
holy crapppppppppp

mitchables
01-04-2011, 10:52 AM
Seems like a mix between Radiohead, Fantasia (the Disney movie), Fleet Foxes, Kraftwerk and T-Pain. It is fucking epic. GET IT.
<object height="385" width="480"></object>

<!--><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:ApplyBreakingRules/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:UseFELayout/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> I mean, I think that’s beautiful. I love that synopsis. You know, we live in a culture that’s all assemblage. All art today is collage. Just listen to Kanye West’s new record – it’s not hip hop. I mean, there’s hip hop in there, but it’s also [I]Fantasia, y’know? It’s got Kraftwerk, and it’s got vocoder all over it, and it’s very folky and very pastoral but it’s very urban – and I think that’s just the state that we live in today. It’s all about assemblage, and The Age of Adz is, I think, fundamentally an electronic record; an electronic pop record. I decided to kind of contain the electronic aesthetics to certain drum machines and certain synthesizers, but I think the arrangements on it are really sort of idiomatic and very romantic, and almost very 70s; they have these sweeping, romantic gestures and all that. So it does feel like it’s sort of all these things in one, and I think that’s just part of who I am. We live in kind of a pretty saturated media culture, and I think a lot of my music is a reflection of that.


there you go buzzkill. just finished transcribing for my article. will suss out a sound clip for you eventually ie when i can be bothered.

Triple A
01-04-2011, 01:52 PM
Nice.

Buzzkill
01-04-2011, 02:01 PM
Damn, been listening through Seven Swans and Michigan again over the last few days, amazing