Quote of the Day

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I almost feel guilty every time I refer back to the post I wrote bitching about the way Asthmatic Kitty wrote up their thoughts on Sufjan Stevens' new album The Age of Adz, as if I blasphemed. As if Sufjan will see what I said and cross me off his list of possible lovers. Yet I have new hope - cross me off in pencil, Suffy! - because here's what he had to say (via Stereogum) about where he's been in relation to his own work, lately:

"‘Liberating’ is an appropriate word, because I felt burdened by the conceptual weight of my previous records. I just wanted to be straightforward, and it was necessary for me to shake it up a little bit. It is more personal, because I didn’t have an object to project meaning on to, so I was left with my own instincts, my own emotional impulses. I was very consciously refining the language… Well, not refining it, but reducing it to core, fundamental principles about love and loneliness. It was about allowing myself to express those feelings in very matter-of-fact, almost cliched terms. The size of the album is a response to all the theatrical clutter that characterized all my previous work. I was getting tired of that self-conscious, rambling psychobabble. I got really sick of myself and my own flawed, epic approach to everything."

Of course he's saying all this about an album that ends with a twenty-five minute song that includes a weirdo deconstructed (albeit absolutely lovely) riff on auto-tune, so keeping perspective here's beneficial.

Anyway The Age of Adz is out for real, like in stores - does anybody go to stores anymore? - tomorrow. I am still listening to it religiously.
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