Sufjan Stevens in new Tape Op is that a joke?

jckinnick · Post by **jckinnick** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 6:05 pm

In the Sufjan Stevens article its mentioned that he wrote a song for Missy Elliot was that supposed to be a joke?

;ivlunsdystf · Post by **;ivlunsdystf** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 7:15 pm

I took it to mean that he went to high school with Missy Elliott, no joke. I don't have the background to confirm or deny this though.

Awesome article BTW. 32khz FTW! I appreciated that there was an SM57 ad buried inside the pages containing the article too. I haven't paid too much attention to his stuff but based on what I learned about his methods and philosophies about recording I see that I'm going to have to spend some time with those albums. Very interesting stuff.

roygbiv · Post by **roygbiv** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 9:59 pm

seek out his performance on Austin City limits. I know nothing about the guy, but came away impressed with the second viewing. The 1st viewing I couldn't get past my inner 7th graders desire to mock him as a girly man singer.

Moral of the story- don't trust your inner Butthead. He has no taste.

And, IIRCC, he needs Teepee for his Cornolio. Or something like that.

Ronan Chris Murphy · Post by **Ronan Chris Murphy** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 12:34 am

;ivlunsdystf wrote: I haven't paid too much attention to his stuff but based on what I learned about his methods and philosophies about recording I see that I'm going to have to spend some time with those albums.

He is an amazing writer. When he is good he is really really good.

T-rex · Post by **T-rex** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 8:03 am

I have to go on the record here as saying, I don't get it.

I respect his recordings as far as the layering and ability to make good sounding stuff out of less than stellar circumstance, but nothing I have heard from him made me think, "wow he's a great songwriter."

mcsquishytooshy · Post by **mcsquishytooshy** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 11:03 am

I appreciate him, and his kind words when we sampled him for our childrens afterschool rap project, The Rappers Delight Club.

mjau · Post by **mjau** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 11:04 am

Anyone who writes a song about Adlai Stevenson is a-ok in my book. Not to mention that I love his records, too.

leigh · Post by **leigh** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 11:50 am

Sufjan promised to do an album about every state in the nation. Thus far, he's done only two, in six years. He'd best pick up the pace, unless he's got another 100+ years left on the clock.

(Yes, I know I'm being snide.)

Jeff White · Post by **Jeff White** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 12:22 pm

He is a master songwriter. Anyone here who hasn't heard his records should definitely pick them up. I've loved Seven Swans for years but had an artistic "religious experience" listening to Illinois after smoking a bit a few years ago. Great stuff. He's also really great live. I caught him in Philly back in 2003 or 2004.

Jeff

JonnyHomes · Post by **JonnyHomes** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 1:45 pm

I think this was my favorite interview in Tape Op yet. It really makes me feel like I complain too much or worry too much about not having the "perfect" studio setup. I think the lesson is to work with what you got and that imagination is far more important than gear.

It helps that I quite like his work - I actually really dig Enjoy Your Rabbit which is an exceedingly strange psychedelic electronic album along with Seven Swans, Michigan, & Illinoise.

joninc · Post by **joninc** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 2:25 pm

i like sufjan a lot too but imo "master songwriter" is a bit of an overstatement.

i realize it's a very subjective thing but - you are putting him into the league of neil young? joni mitchell? bob dylan? you think he's got 20 to 30 years of great albums to come? maybe - hard to say now tho.

there are definitely moments of brilliance on his albums and he's clearly a very gifted arranger etc... certain songs have really achingly beautiful melodies too. but at their core a lot of the songs are really simple ideas that he adorns very beautifully in the studio - and definitely taking a page from the steve reich camp as well with the repetition/cycling/overlapping chordal stuff.

time will show how much depth there is in there for him to mine - how versatile he is. or whether it will just be more subtle variations of the same type of things he's already done. or more hi-fi versions etc....

looking forward to reading the article!

crookedsound · Post by **crookedsound** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 8:37 pm

I thought the article was pretty great and inspiring.

That said, I only know him from the Austin City Limits. I have friends that think he is great so I thought I would check it out. Unfortunately it didn't do it for me and I ended up not making it through the whole performance.

Maybe I'll try to check him out more after reading such a great interview.

Still, music is in the ear of the beholder and it just might not be my thing.

This issue is pretty great overall...which is a redundant statement in terms of my Tape Op subscription.

;ivlunsdystf · Post by **;ivlunsdystf** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 8:50 pm

I made it about 10 minutes into the Austin City Limits. He seemed so goddam smug with those stupid angel wings. I couldn't watch. I think he must come off that way in person, too, judging by his smug comments about Rick Rubin at the end of the Tape Op interview. The details about his working methods are pretty interesting, though, and I don't really care whether he is really smug or only pretend-smug if he has cool recordings. I will check them out next chance I get. If nothing else it's always fun to read about commando recording techniques like overdubbing kick drum parts and flying stuff from VS880 to a computer 2 tracks at a time through the computer microphone input. On net, a cool interview.

allyouneedisears · Post by **allyouneedisears** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 10:03 pm

Nice, sufjan is probably my favorite modern songwriter. I would really love to read this article, I can't afford a subscription at the moment (I live in canada) would some kind soul pm me the article?

teleguy2 · Post by **teleguy2** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 10:16 pm

Not only am I a fan of Sufjan's ("Michigan" is the album that I love the most) but I found that many of his techniques were similar to what I've done. I had an 880, upgraded to a 1680, then transferred many tracks 2 tracks at a time into ProTools.

I smiled when I read it. And I could also relate to the limited number of mics he's had to work with.

I've since added a few to my collection, but my first couple of mics were an 57, 58, and a really, really crappy $14 radioshack mic.

Now, I've yet to make anything as cool as Michigan...but I'm working on it.

I doubt he'll ever finish the 50 States thing, but I think that was more of a publicity thing, which I think worked. He will continue to make and/or produce interesting music (check out The Welcome Wagon for his handiwork) in the future.

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Sufjan Stevens in new Tape Op is that a joke?

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