Ah, the concept album -- that often maligned, sometimes successful but always bizarre offering by artists eager to approach their work from a new angle.
A concept album allows a musician to adopt a new persona or explore a character. It can be brilliant ("Ziggy Stardust" is now recognized as one of Bowie's classics and a seminal glam-rock album) or disastrous (remember Garth Brooks's "In The Life of Chris Gaines"? No?). However the final product turns out, a concept album usually doesn't appear more than once in an artist's oeuvre; it's a kind of one-time experiment, a musical dare.
No one told this to Sufjan Stevens, the singer/songwriter/everything-player who has made a career out of thematic albums. Tonight, he'll be appearing at the Somerville Theatre in support of his latest recording, "Illinois."
"Illinois" is part of Stevens's incredibly ambitious "50 States Project," wherein he aims to record one album for every state in the country. Don't hold your breath: at his current rate, Stevens should finish sometime around 2053.
"Greetings From Michigan," the first in the series, was one of 2003's most well-received records. Far from directly representing Michigan's famed musical past (Stevens is more lo-fi than Motown), the album draws on the artist's experience as a folk-rocker to explore the state's complex present. "Say Yes! To Michigan!" celebrates Stevens's affection for his home state, while more introspective songs like "Flint (For the Unemployed and Underpaid)" lament the same economic struggle that was explored in fellow Great Lakes State native Michael Moore's "Roger and Me."
Prior to "Greetings From Michigan," Stevens released 2001's "Enjoy Your Rabbit." The album was an electronic "song cycle," with one track for each animal of the zodiac (plus some extras: "Year of the Asthmatic Cat," while a sweet allusion to his label, Asthmatic Kitty, is nowhere to be seen on Chinese zodiac charts).
Rounding out Stevens's concept pieces is 2004's "Seven Swans." Breaking from the 50 States Project, Stevens recorded an album about his religious faith. Deactivate your "Christian rock" alarm: "Seven Swans" is not so much Creed as it is banjo players on the front porch of a Faulkner novel. Southern literary influences are visible in the song "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," a take on the Flannery O'Connor story of the same name.
"Illinoise" features the same eclectic mix of musical styles and affinity for quirky titles.
Stevens recently told MTV that he thinks of his performances "as sounding like a sixth grade band." This vision is evident on songs like "Come On! Feel The Illinoise!," which is broken into "Part I: The World's Columbian Exposition" and "Part II: Carl Sandburg Visits Me In A Dream." The end of Part I is signaled by an instrumental interlude during which one can visualize black-clad 12-year-olds stumbling around in the dark, trying to get the set ready for the triumphant return of Part II.
Other standouts include "Chicago," which builds up to a chanting cavalcade of voices and "They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From The Dead!! Ahhhh!," which name-checks Reagan and Captain Clitus and teaches listeners how to spell words like "Illinois" and "birds."
The album's scale and diversity, while perfectly effective on disc, may be the only hindrance to a comparable live show. Stevens plays 19 different instruments on "Illinois," an impossible feat to replicate on stage. And although Stevens tours with a more extensive entourage than your average singer/songwriter, he will probably not be able to fit the entire Illinoisemaker Choir (who are credited in the liner notes as providing "vocals, clapping, hooting, hollers") into the Somerville Theatre.
Stevens is known for having a shy, thoughtful, almost reverent stage presence, which will serve songs like "John Wayne Gacy, Jr." (an unlikely ballad about the serial killer) well but could be jarring when offset with more theatrical songs like "The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts."
But Stevens will likely find a way around these limitations. One of the more innovative artists in today's music scene, Stevens has shown that he can mix Chinese cosmology with modern Christianity, the Great Lakes State with the Prairie State. And if tonight's show goes well, he might just find inspiration for the first single off of 2041's "How Do You Spell Massachusetts Anyway?" album.<$>
