Sufjan Stevens - Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lakes State
Asthmatic Kitty 2003

About 7:07 p.m., a screeching sound wound its way into the store over the PA system. A few seconds of silence and then the sound of a car peeling off into the distance. Someone out on the sidewalk started screaming. Hit and run. One fatality.

That night crystalized my disdain for California. Someone died, or it turned out later, was dying, while I sat inside, convincing the customer at hand that the purchase they were about to make was a good one. Nevermind the thing was and is completely unnecessary and my job only continues to promulgate this industry.

Ever since my forced move down to California, I've counted the days to the moment when I can escape this awful place and head back to the only place that has ever felt even remotely like home.

Which explains the delay in this review. It wasn't until I realized how completely and totally alien I felt here in my home state and how desperately I wanted to return to my former place of residence did Greetings From Michigan truly click. Only until I lost what I loved and found myself forced to move back to the things I had no desire to return to was I able to relate with the melancholy tone of the album.

The overt folkishness of A Sun Came is mostly gone, with a new 60s era, xylophone backed vibe filling out most of the album. The inclusion of a banjo and trumpets on the near unbearably morose "For the Windows in Paradise," work to push the album further away from its kitschy predecessor, giving it a regal, beautiful feel that was lacking from Sun as well as Rabbit. The entire album benefits from the songs being more fully fleshed out, featuring layer upon layer, all woven together masterfully by Stevens, who was responsible for the majority of the instrumentation on the album.

Coinciding with his growth as a composer is his lyrical approach, which has gone from the somewhat simplistic faux-folk character of Sun to a much more complex narrator. Walking the listener through his home state, the album's final picture is a conflicted, nuanced piece light years beyond the lyrics of Sun.

One of the most beautifully sad albums of 2003.