Top Ten Albums 2010:

3. Sufjan Stevens - Age of Adz

My top three albums for 2010 all have one thing in common. They come from artists looking to make something out of the seemingly unsurpassable expectations of their personalities, past releases, or both. In a lot of ways, this has been the theme for 2010 as a whole; so many artists/entertainers have come up against an ideological wall that has either confounded their creativity (see Kings of Leon, Taylor Swift, etc.), pushed them towards unremarkable safety-based improvements (see Arcade Fire, The National, etc.), or forced them like cats backed into a corner to do something drastic and grandiose. 

For fans of his extensive back catalog, the creator of this year’s number three pick evolved in a not altogether surprising way. Anyone watching Sufjan Stevens’ dynamic and mysterious creative journey between the release of Come On Feel the Illinoise!,  the record that put him among the greats, and his 2010 release Age of Adz, would have seen it all coming: Backlash from the expectations of his ambitious (but obviously PR-driven) 50 states project, his retreat from the public eye, his music trade and song auction stunts, his Enjoy Your Rabbit-redux release featuring string arrangements, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway project, the surprise release of that EP, and the list goes on….

So yeah, it wasn’t a surprise the first time I heard Age of Adz. I knew what Sufjan was capable of producing. I knew the kind of musical mechanics he was able to engineer and sustain. But even though none of this project, which represents a responsorial phase in his career as a popular musician, can be seen as out of left field, Age of Adz is one of the most inspired visions of pop in the new century.

From the very start of Adz, there is a feeling that Stevens is allowing the listener to say a quick goodbye to the conventions that he had created and with which he had become inseparable. By the time the first track is through, “Too Much” takes us for a ride that sets up the tone and pace that the rest of the album doesn’t ever let go of. There are sweeping cosmic rhythms, bombastic and overtly conducted horn blasts, and a constant twitter of angelic background vocals, a lot of which are done by St. Vincent’s Annie Clark towards the end of the record. 

ftw.

To say that this record borders on psychedelic is being too broad. Sufjan’s style is not a resignation to insanity or futility, but rather a constant struggle to hold on to order and organization. Once he loses the overlay of a “theme” or “concept” he has to focus more on keeping things emotionally earnest. When you listen to some of the really “personal” tracks on this record, you start to feel like Michigan and Illinois, both fairly heart-piercing albums, had a ton more walls around the core. 

Don’t get me wrong, Adz has emotional defense built in, especially in the dense musical structure of his more winding tunes. But this record really stands out as a move forward, as the defense mechanism that Sufjan had inadvertently become synonymous with has been evenly dispersed among the whole work. The show that he’s putting on is now less about the facade for his macro-songwriting and more about the structure of his compositions. 

Strangely enough, I’ve listened to this Sufjan record less than a lot of the stuff on my top ten list. And compared to some albums that didn’t even make the list, this album has been comparatively unworn by my standards. I hope that this is a good sign about my ability to let this album breathe, about my ability to let this record get better over time. It is number one for several of my close friends and I respect that. 

All and all, my number 3 was the safest of the huge successes witnessed during 2010.