r/Sufjan

Discovered it recently. There's something so real about it. Hearing it feels as if you're singing to yourself. So simple yet so beautiful.

Too Much, or, How to Put Up a Fight and Still Feel Lonely as That in the Morning, or, We Regret to Inform You That There Is Too Much Riding on This but You May Continue Riding on It Anyway, or, “I Have Shut the Gate and Will Keep It Shut Until You Come with a Battering Ram!”

Come On! Feel the Age of Adz! (Part I: “The Fivefold Division of the Earth” / Part II: “Royal Robertson Visits Me in a Dream”)

To Those Who Have Failed to Get Real or Get Right, I Have an Idea Concerning Your Predicament, and It Involves a Ring of Fire, Bathroom Doors, and 25 Minutes of Trying Not to Be Distracted

1. I've been listening to Meg Lui's new album a bit. I'll admit I'm a bit underwhelmed. The singles are all great, and the topic of screen addiction is top of mind for me so I appreciate anthems like Gone Girl and Instant Validation to inspire me!

However, the rest of the song-writing feels a bit lacklustre. Sometimes Sufjan's production is actually so much more interesting than the song that it feels distracting. Take the Suf's interludes at around the minute mark on RoadKill which are so full of energy and flourishes it actually feels disjointed from the rest of the song's trudging riff.

On Instant Validation, at first I disappointed as the Sufjan song credit felt unearned: obviously the production is all his, but I guess I was hoping for more of his voice. Then I had the strong feeling that this must have been a song-writing collab, as the line "All these waves of hysteria / washing over pains of America" seems like 100% a Suf line, both in lyrics and melody – he must have wrote it!

But then I had the second realization that this is eerily similar to Greenday's American Idiot: "And can you hear the sound of hysteria / The subliminal mindfuck America" Homage? Unconscious inspiration? I feel it must be one of the two.

Anyways, can anyone direct me to learn more about Sufjan's level of involvement in this project or how he got connected with Lui? Curious to learn more!

2. Has anyone listened to Phoebe Bridger's new album Lost Weekend? Damn if it isn't incredible: haunting, catchy, dense, hard to pin down... But I also can't help but hear a lot of Carrie & Lowell inspirations. The most explicit example I can think of is how "Still Standing" drops out into an atmospheric chorus of "oohs," VERY much like the ending of "Death with Dignity" and others. It also is a song that reflects on the recent loss of her father, again a la Carrie

From the bed near your death, and all the machines that made a mess.
Far away the falcon flew.

Some of Sufjan’s greatest lyricism are in the subtle things. Like here, visiting a scene by a hospital bed, intimate and right in the moment; then widening the narrative to a flying falcon, as life goes on.