Sufjan Stevens, "The Age of Adz"

In 2010, beloved indie-folk artist Sufjan Stevens shocked the music world by abandoning his winning combination of gentle acoustic rock and grandiose baroque-pop in favor for glitchy, experimental, and manic electronic noises. Instead of relying on the guitar and piano as songwriting tools, Sufjan used samplers, sequencers, and pedals to find new inspiration. The result was an extremely complex, ambitious, and very interesting record called The Age of Adz. Whether or not you are a fan of Sufjan's risks, one thing is for certain: This album truly doesn't sound like anything else out there. When this record was first released back in 2010, I gave it a listen. As a fan of Illinois, Sufjan's 2005 baroque/folk masterpiece that led him to indie stardom, I was very confused, overwhelmed, and ultimately disappointed when I first heard the Age of Adz. The odd song structures, the noisey instrumentals, the frequent use of harsh dissonance, and most importantly, the absence of folk influences, did absolutely nothing for me. But with the release of his brilliant and simple return to folk, Carrie & Lowell (which I blogged about here), I decided to revisit some of  Sufjan's previous work, including The Age of Adz. After really digesting a few of the album's key tracks, my view on this record changed completely. When I listened to The Age of Adz five years ago, I wrote it off simply because it was not what I had expected, and was so different from anything else I had heard before. Now, I regard this creative body-of-work as a masterpiece. While the aformationed glitchy, electronic soundscapes are prevalent throughout the whole album, Stevens's songwriting is stronger than ever. The album's second track, "Too Much", is as catchy as a straightforward pop song, but the scattering electric drums and seemingly random blips, along with an unusual time signature, make it much more compelling and unusual than the average indie pop song. But my personal favorite song on the record is the second-to-last track, "I Want to Be Well". The musical complexity and absurdly exaggerated frenzy of computer-generated noise, complete with periodic splashes of dissonant horns and female background vocals, is impossible to comprehend upon first listen. But once the song builds-up and the hook reveals itself three minutes into the song, you eventually realize that you are simply listening to an emotionally compelling, futuristic pop song. Although it was only released five years ago, I strongly believe that The Age of Adz is ahead of its time. I can already hear the glitch-y elements of these songs making their way into today's mainstream alternative music scene, as well as in house and trap music. In many ways, I would liken this album to the Beach Boys 1966 classic album, Pet Sounds. Both are pop albums at their core, but bring in many new and creative compositional elements to the table. They both experiment with instruments in new ways, tinker with song structure, divulge into very personal and introspective lyrical territory (something both Sufjan and Brian Wilson tended to avoid before these respective albums), and overall sound much more similar to music that came out in the years following their releases, and not like anything else from the time they were released. Revisiting The Age of Adz was an extremely rewarding experience for me. I hope that as time passes, this album will gain the critical acclaim that it deserves, much like Pet Sounds did. The Age of Adz is a truly creative album that is hard to digest after one listen, but is very satisfying after many.



          

Stream the entire album for free here!
Click here to watch Sufjan's 2010 performance of "Too Much" on Jimmy Fallon