CHANGE: Sufjan Stevens Must Finish 50 States Album Project Immediately!
These past two weeks, my friends told me they felt shocked, depressed, scared, confused, shameful, disgusted and angry. I’ve never been more unsure about the direction of my country in my life.
That’s why Sufjan Stevens must release the remaining 47* states albums to the listening public as soon as possible.
Get in the studio; write the songs; do the research! We need these records now more than ever if we ever want to understand each other and start the healing process. Music is culture: and every state has culture. Let’s capture that culture with a collection of quirky/somber indie-pop albums.
I don’t have any evidence to support this, but I gaurentee anyone who listens to Sufjan Stevens, didn’t vote for Trump. Maybe people who only listened to the Christian album, Seven Swans, picked Trump, but we need to forgive them. People who prefer Enjoy Your Rabbit (the Chinese Zodiac noise record), definitely voted third party, and we need to forgive them as well.
The point is, once Sufjan releases a record for every state, we’ll understand ourselves better as Americans. When we understand our American heritage, we’ll stop voting against our own interests!
I live in the midwest’s last remaining blue state, Chicago. In fact, I’ve lived in Illinois all my life. More importantly, I’ve listened to Sufjan’s breakout album, Come On And Feel The Illinoise since 2005. I even went to University of Illinois and saw Sufjan play in an Urbana bar in 2009 after he almost died. I understand better than anyone else (besides possibly Sufjan) the heart and soul of beautiful, Illinois(e).
Yet I feel terminally alienated from the incomprehensible red states that surround me.
All of them except good, old Michigan. I get Michigan. Whenever a girl breaks up with me, I listen to Sufjan Stevens Presents…Greetings From Michigan, The Great Lakes State. It’s a sad album; of course, the sad people that live in this sad state picked Trump. Sad.
But Michigan is more than just sad, it’s also pretty. I vacationed in Michigan and I love its lush lake-y landscape: the trees, the bear, etc. I’ve yet to venture up to Detroit and check out “urban” Michigan. However, I’ve heard that the city was “Once a great place/Now a prison.”
I don’t have any evidence to back this up either, but maybe the 2016 election would have been different if Hillary heard “Flint (For The Unemployed & Underpaid)” and sought out the vote of the guy who lost his job, cried and died alone in the street.
Otherwise, I know next to nothing about practically every other state.
California seems cool. Sufjan could sing about surfing and 1950s sports cars. What’s Ohio’s deal? Is the Buckeye an actual bird? Sufjan could sing about it. Did you know there’s three cities in Ohio? He could sing a song how Cleveland is only for racist people, or finally sing an ode to the spookiest Great Lake, Lake Erie.
Then, let’s move on to the exotic states! Do a crocodile song for Florida! Or an alligator song. Which do they have? Both?
I just don’t know.
Honestly, I would even take a Soundcloud mixtape that’s just one quick song for ever state. Sufjan, just sing us a summary of Montana like this one…
“It’s got mountains/There is nature/Cowboy tough guys/Guns and other stuff”
We just want to feel like we’re all apart of one country again.
So Sufjan, stop writing music about your dead parents for two weeks and help us learn how to feel and forgive! America needs you!
*I’ll count BQE as New York because I’ve heard New Yorkers are all a bunch of jerks anyway.
