b r a n d o n

Sufjan Stevens is a singer-songwriter turned electronic artist turned multi-instrumentalist who became a critical darling in 2003 with the release of this, a concept album that paints a vivid, if occasionally desolate, picture of Stevens' home state of Michigan. Greetings from Michigan takes the listener on a journey to places in America that are likely foreign to the average reader of this website: poor, defeated ghost towns; isolated rural countrysides; peaceful, frozen riverbanks. The weapons of choice are diverse, but most prominent is Stevens' fragile voice, which lends the album a delicious, delicate beauty, one that is augmented in a down-home fashion by compelling performances on banjo, acoustic guitar, piano, and quietly chiming xylophones. At its most basic, the album consists of two kinds of compositions: sparse, delicate (I'm going to overuse that word in this review, if only because it seems like the most appropriate adjective in the English language to describe everything about the album) short songs that highlight Stevens' almost shy (delicate) vocals, and longer, intricately layered and textured pieces that show a surprising amount of minimalist influence, particularly from the likes of Steve Reich. The first four songs offer an excellent cross-section of what Greetings from Michigan has to offer. "Flint (For the Unemployed and Underpaid)" starts off the album with a fitting paean to the impoverished manufacturing town that Michael Moore made famous. A slow, almost funereal piano melody underscores Stevens' voice singing lines like "Since the first of June/lost my job/and lost my room/I pretend to try/Even if I try alone"; his tone is both plaintive and somehow celebratory, as if he is reveling in his own longing. This merges into the more upbeat, unambiguously celebratory second track, a lushly orchestrated pop song with short, repetitive melodies on piano and guitar that hint at the minimalist influence that crops up later on the album. "For the Widows in Paradise, for the Fatherless in Ypsilanti" is the touching third track, and probably my favorite on the album, a song that takes down the layering to, a single banjo with horn and piano accents and, of course, Stevens' voice, this time harmonized to devastating effect with a female vocalist. The melodies and orchestration are simply brilliant; it's a rare song that is capable of bringing tears to the eyes, but this is one of them. This is followed by one of the more unconventional pieces on the album - again, characterized by short melodies repeated over and over, both in the vocals and instrumental parts. Later this style is taken to a wonderful, festive apex in "Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head!", with heavily layered, rhythmic piano and xylophone chiming behind short, staccato, repetitive vocal lines ("Saginaw. Saginaw. After dark. After dark. Tigers game. Tigers game. Eighty-four. Eighty-four. Industry. Industry. Unemployed. Unemployed."). The intricacy and deceptive complexity of the arrangements betray an obvious minimalist influence, which is really cool to see in an indie-pop kind of album. Despite the fact that I know next to nothing about Michigan, I feel confident in saying that if you've never been there, this album is the next best thing. Stevens has done his home state proud, putting forth the best musical tribute it could ask for. Greetings from Michigan offers a combination of melodies that range from devastatingly, achingly plaintive to cheerfully upbeat, and an often unusual approach to arrangements, that make it one indie-pop album I feel could have a definite appeal to prog fans. review by Brandon Wu — 3-15-04 —