Artist Sufjan Stevens

Denny Renshaw

Website
Sufjan Stevens

Even to ears that grow cranky as more and more uninspired artists march to the base of the “indie-folk” pile, Sufjan Stevens’ marriage of spare acoustics, whimsical instrumentation, and ribcage-tugging hooks helps to put such genre labels (and the exhaustion they reflect) in the background where they belong. Perhaps it takes a certain madness to tour with a “butterfly brigade” clad in adorable butterfly wings as Stevens once did, or to attempt a series of 50 concept albums on the states. Having spent the five years since Illinois putting out B-sides, Christmas songs, and an ode to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, Stevens returned to more conventional song-based records last year, releasing the hour-long All Delighted People EP and a full-length album, The Age Of Adz.

Updated 07/19/2011