An Official Sufjan Christmas
Christmas comes a little early this year for fans of Sufjan Stevens. Asthmatic Kitty has announced a five volume set of Christmas songs that includes previously unreleased tracks and several new recordings.
I recall commenting elsewhere that I felt funny about downloading the previous three volumes, only to be called a nerd and encouraged to just buy more Asthmatic Kitty stuff to make up for it. However, I have since been told by “friends of friends of Stevens” that he does not mind file sharing. Either way, it is nice to see these great songs formally released.
The release date on Amazon is November 21, 2006, but you can preorder now (click on the CD image). Thanks to Josiah for the heads up.
Scott, I am putting this link here to an article that John wrote in “The Other Journal” in regards to Sufjan Stevens. Thought you might be interested. It will certainly stimulate conversation…and, no, I haven’t corrected his grammar, though I should.
http://theotherjournal.com/perspective.php
I might just buy it just to hear the track called “Get Behind Me, Santa!” song sheets with chords are cool too. I wish everyone did that.
Debbie: That’s an interesting piece your boy has there. I agree with some of it, but would lean toward Illman’s response and the person who said he uses the term “gay” a little too loosely. Like you said, it’ll definitely stimulate conversation.
I think that the fact that a homosexual impression/stereotype can be gleened from Sufjan’s clothes/hairstyle/voice/music/etc. says more about our culture’s warped view of sexuality, masculinity and feminity than it does to prove one’s sexual orientation. The man isn’t gay, he’s just married to his music!
Anyway, here’s a direct link to the article (the one you gave is just to the home page and the article is bound to filter off eventually).
Reconciling Sufjan Stevens: Religious Hipsters and The Inevitable Queerness Of Christian Music
Bob: I wish we had someone like you in our church who could play some guitar in worship. Can you do banjo? Sufjan loves the banjo, especially on the Christmas tunes.
Seriously, haven’t been able to get into his stuff. Either it tends to blend in with the rest of the WB-esq music or it’s so chaotic that I don’t want to bother listening. Granted, the sample size is small, so I’ll submit these as temporal opinions.
We’ll have to throw in some Sufjan for the Nitney Lions v. Irish game.