from an interview with Paste
Meanwhile, the Internet was doing its best to make LPs obsolete, pushing Stevens further and further from the kind of songwriting he’s hardly attempted since Illinois. “I’m wondering, why do people make albums anymore when we just download? Why are songs like three or four minutes, and why are records 40 minutes long? They’re based on the record, vinyl, the CD, and these forms are antiquated now. So can’t an album be eternity, or can’t it be five minutes?” He pauses. “I no longer really have faith in the album anymore. I no longer have faith in the song.”[...]This fall, Stevens will release a CD soundtrack of The BQE along with a DVD of the footage and a stereoscopic 3-D Viewmaster reel. In the liner notes, he writes, “And then it hits you: If skyscrapers are the ultimate phallic symbols, then the urban expressway is the ultimate birth canal, the uterine wall, the anatomical passageway, the ultimate means of egress, and the process by which we are all born again. The BQE is the Motherhood of Civilization, the Breast of Being, the fallopian tube, the biological canal from which all of life emerges in resplendent beauty, newborn and newly fashioned with the immaculate countenance of a baby.” And maybe there’s something to that. Illinois is what it is—a necessary part of a creative journey that cannot end in the same place it started. Untethered by musical tradition, the expectations of his fans and the prospect of record sales, Stevens changed direction; he was reborn. It happened somewhere on that treacherous expressway, long after he left Illinois.
whoa. i'm a bit worried about whatever happens next. this is what happens when postmodernity runs riot in the life of a perfectly innocent artist.
hm. rather disconcerting...particularly the first bit.
ReplyDeletethe cd is excellent, though.
audrey! what's up? how's life in the south these days? and, more on topic i guess, have you heard BQE? i'm sort of morbidly interested, i think ... illinois is without a doubt one of my top 5 albums of all time. i do wonder what we're moving to, especially when you see headlines like this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.engadget.com/2009/11/03/the-beatles-catalog-being-released-on-limited-edition-usb-stick/
just wonder what's next.
good grief - life on a USB drive for your convenience! one does indeed wonder...
ReplyDeletei bought the BQE partly because i've seen the real BQE & partly because i like sufjan - for the most part. after a couple listens the BQE seems a little contrived & frantic, but there's some lovely sweeping piano bits. & there's an interesting review here:
http://evangelicaloutpost.com/archives/2009/10/instrumental-expressways-sufjan-stevens-the-bqe.html
life in the south is rather choice at the moment.
& yes - your worst fears are confirmed - Master Shryer's facial hair is increasingly present these days.
how are you doing? the last time i talked to you was at that fine conference thingy.