Carrie & Lowell

This album is a mirror of what the majority of this site's inhabitants are. Lighten up a bit, will ya.

Fourth of July is awesome, obviously. The rest, meh. But I respect it, no doubt about it. It's ok to be sad every once in a while.

Not this guy again.

A master of story telling and emotional landscapes. The understated music is so perfect.

This was my first proper experience with Sufjan Stevens (listened before I got Illinois on the generator) so to say I wasn't expecting something more akin to Elliott Smith than anything else would be an understatement. This album is just consistently and hauntingly bittersweet, with the looming sense of dread never taking away from the beauty of the simplistic production, allowing the listener to seep in every single lyric and pick apart what each lyric means on a deep, personal level to Stevens. Context may be necessary to fully grasp it, but with even the slightest bit of media literacy, one can grasp the weight of the album on display. It doesn't overstay its welcome, it is surface level repetitive, but wildly layered once you dive in a bit more and pick apart small production pieces and, once again, lyrical clues. It plays like a window into a gorgeous room with no one inside, and that can be humbling. It is hard for me to separate this album from its obvious influences, and admittedly that caused some distraction throughout the album, as my mind would wander to tracks from Either/Or, but this is clearly something special to a lot of people, and while I didn't break down crying (it honestly wasn't even the most emotionally devastating album I've listened to today) its somber tones and instrumentation tied with its poetic confessions of death and love do not go unnoticed, rather greatly appreciated.

Absolute peak sadboi indie. This is my favorite Sufjan album. It's so beautiful and haunting.

A touching tribute, but in a form and package that I don't have much a connection to or a passion for.

Pretty glad to have drawn this one on a dark, quiet, rainy morning.

Of all the albums ever recorded, this sure is one of them. It was released too, at some point, and I am sure I heard the music on it.
There were words too, I am almost certain. From what I remember, this album dreams of one day aspiring to "aye, half-decent, that", while being much better than "nah, not for me".
This is fine.

A perfect album for all you imperfect people out there, all you children whose mothers didn't care for you, all you kids being taught to swim by men who aren't your biological fathers, all you keen-eyed philosophers who are aware of and celebrate the fact that we're all going to die, all you sufferers who understand that there is no shade in the shadow of the Cross, and all you broken-hearted seekers wondering why people won't love you.

Great indie album, Sufjan Stevens is already on the original list, but agree we could haves squeezed this album
In too.

An even better choice of Sufjan album for the list than the officially selected "Illinois."