Sufjan Stevens’ musical turn-off: “Any band that’s still together after 10 years”
The musical chameleon that is Sufjan Stevens has grown to be a respected and distinctive voice within popular music. Bursting onto the scene in the new millennium with their debut album, A Sun Came, the American singer-songwriter has since gained international recognition for his unique genre-bending sounds.
The man himself, now approaching his fifth decade, has never been one to shy away from voicing his own musical opinions. Back in 2021, in a social media post discussing his watching and listening habits from the previous 12 months, Steven caused quite a stir with some of his comments.
Sharing some of his favourite albums from the year, though many of them did not actually come out in 2021, Stevens praised Alain Goraguer’s La Planète Sauvage soundtrack, the Ringo Starr solo album Beaucoups of Blues, as well as Future Days by Krautrock icons Can. His listening habits in 2021 seemed to be as vast and eclectic as the man himself, ranging from classical jazz to avant-garde and even a collection of traditional songs from Western Tibet.
It was the singer’s list of least favourites that provided an insight into Sufjan Stevens’s mind. Much of the list is composed of television shows and films, including the smash-hit Squid Game, of which Stevens derisively said, “I didn’t actually see it, but it looks really stupid.” It seems as though the songwriter does not hold much appreciation for streaming services in general, saying of the Disney+ series The Interminable Marvel Brand, “If it’s on Disney +, it’s for children.”
Despite its focus on television and film, Stevens did find the opportunity to sprinkle his musical opinions into his 2021 list. One of the biggest releases of that year was, of course, 30 by Adele, but the Michigan-born songwriter did not believe the hype, listing the album as one of his least favourite moments of the year, “Girl, please. We know you’re 33. It’s on your Wikipedia page.”
One of the singer’s most bizarre comments, along with his stunning indictment of Covid-19 (“Ugh. So over it. Please stop killing us!”), was his opinion that any group that has been together for ten years should split up. “Any band that is still together after ten years—Please. Break up. Do your solo albums. Move on,” Stevens wrote. It is unclear whether his comment was meant as a joke or not, but with the singer’s own career entering its third decade, the view does seem to be somewhat narrow-minded.
While the singer’s comments would prevent seminal works from Radiohead’s In Rainbows to Sonic Youth’s Dirty ever being released, they are indicative of Stevens’ constant need for development and innovation. Many groups bumble along for a decade without ever changing their sound or maturing musically, so perhaps it was these painfully generic artists that Stevens was referring to.
