Sufjan Stevens: Forgiven For Loving Jesus

Okay, I dunno for sure if Sufjan Stevens is a jesus freak but I've heard enough people say he is to believe it's true. And I have to say that for once, this doesn't bother me at all. Who fuckin' cares if you love God when you can make an album as absolutely mindblowing as Illinoise? Christian? Maybe, but we're not talking about Jars Of Clay or Creed here. There's no precedent in Christian popular music for an album as varied and beautiful and hard to figure out as this one. This is music made by a man crazed by sleep deprivation, unable to eat or pay attention to the world outside the recording studio. The time and energy it must have taken to come up with something like this is just effing insane. If this guy isn't a religioso he's definitely nuts in some other way cause the sheer amount of instruments and ideas on Illinoise is enough to rival Pet Sounds. Yeah, I just said that - disagree all you want but it's true.

Yeah yeah yeah, I know critics have been jizzing about this guy for awhile now, but i'd been ignoring the hype - too busy digesting new releases by confirmed atheist bands to be bothered. I figured he was just another singer/songwriter with shrug inducing love songs or one of these neo hippie freak acoustic guitar-in-a-field-of-daisies types. Praise the lawd for letting me hear Illinoise before I heard about Sufjan's jesus infatuation - I would most certainly have gone on ignoring him just like i ignore the diseased and starving children of the world or natural disasters that don't affect me.