Sufjan Stevens' third album is a charming homage to his home state of Michigan. Filled with heartbreak, the album cryptically addresses Stevens' frustration with the notorious job market in the city of Flint in a lovely ballad that opens the record, and documents the depressing struggle the city of Detroit has fought to once again attain the elegance it had prior to the riots in the late '60s; however, it also touches on a brighter side, as in the cascading "Say Yes! to M!ch!gan!" Its title is a reference to the campaign adopted by the state in the 1980s and serves as the centerpiece as well as Steven's attachment and amour for the state he is from. Musically, Stevens often plays his Jim O'Rourke and Stereolab cards, riffing along with complex polyphony in building loops and dynamics, but he also frequently imports lightly strummed guitars and stark banjo picking to break up the album and give it a rustic northern folk aesthetic. Stevens comfortably handles nearly every instrument on the album -- an impressive task that includes various keyboards, woodwinds, guitars, and percussions -- but also enlisted the help of Megan, Elin and Daniel Smith from the Danielson Famile to help out with vocal duties, and the outcome is a haunting and hypnotic studio opus certainly worth getting lost in. - AllMusic.com
Tracklisting
- Flint (For The Unemployed And Underpaid)
- All Good Naysayers, Speak Up! Or Forever Hold Your Peace!
- For The Windows In Paradise, For The Fatherless In Ypsilanti
- Say Yes! To M!ch!gan!
- The Upper Peninsula
- Tahquamenon Falls
- Holland
- Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head! (Rebuild! Restore! Reconsider!)
- Romulus
- Alanson, Crooked River
- Sleeping Bear, Sault Saint Marie
- They Also Mourn Who Do Not Wear Black (For The Homeless In Muskegon)
- Oh God, Where Are You Now? (In Pickeral Lake? Pigeon? Marquette? Mackinaw?)
- Redford (For Yia-Yia & Pappou)
- Vito's Ordination Song