The room › Artists › Sufjan Stevens
Where to start with Sufjan Stevens
Start with A conjunction of drones simulating the way in which Sufjan Stevens has an existential crisis in the Great Godfrey Maze — Illinois, 2005. That is the track sitting closest to the centre of all 22 Sufjan Stevens tracks in Zubissou Sounds — a listening room of 15,847 tracks placed one at a time by hand, not an algorithm.
This page is not a discography and not a ranking. It describes exactly one thing: the 22 Sufjan Stevens tracks that one person put in one room, and where they sit relative to each other. The starting point above is chosen by a rule you can check — of the 22 tracks, it is the one nearest the average position on the four knobs the room runs on, and where two sit equally close the one on a named record wins. Nothing here calls any record better than any other.
It is deep rather than broad: 22 tracks drawn from only 1 record.
The years need a caveat: every dated track comes from one record, so these years describe what is in the room, not a career. Read the year column below as the date on the copy in this room, not the date the music arrived in the world.
Every track is filed under indie folk; nothing here crosses into another genre.
The density knob swings 40 points across these tracks, the widest of the four — it is the axis this artist actually travels along in this room.
Three ways in
The one track, if you only play one
A conjunction of drones simulating the way in which Sufjan Stevens has an existential crisis in the Great Godfrey Maze — Illinois, 2005. Of the 22 Sufjan Stevens tracks here, this one sits closest to the average of all of them across the four knobs the room runs on. It is the least surprising thing in the collection, which is exactly what an entry point should be.
If you want the sparse end
John Wayne Gacy, Jr. — Illinois, 2005. The lowest density reading of any Sufjan Stevens track in the room (25 out of 100). This is as far towards sparse as the collection goes.
If you want the wall end
Come On! Feel the Illinoise! Part I: The World's Columbian Exposition Part II: Carl Sandburg Visits Me In A Dream — Illinois, 2005. The highest density reading here, at 65 out of 100 — a 40-point swing across the collection towards wall.
Where Sufjan Stevens sits in the room
Zubissou Sounds does not have playlists or genres you click. It has knobs. Every track carries a position on each one, set by hand when the track was added, and you find music by setting the room to a state rather than by searching for a name. These are Sufjan Stevens's average coordinates and the range they cover.
All four run 0–100. They are placed by a person, not derived from audio analysis or from any streaming service's feature data.
What is here, record by record
| Album | Year | Tracks |
|---|---|---|
| Illinois | 2005 | 22 |
Every Sufjan Stevens track in the room
| Track | Album | Year |
|---|---|---|
| A conjunction of drones simulating the way in which Sufjan Stevens has an existential crisis in the Great Godfrey Maze | Illinois | 2005 |
| A short reprise for Mary Todd, who went insane, but for very good reasons | Illinois | 2005 |
| Casimir Pulaski Day | Illinois | 2005 |
| Chicago | Illinois | 2005 |
| Come On! Feel the Illinoise! Part I: The World's Columbian Exposition Part II: Carl Sandburg Visits Me In A Dream | Illinois | 2005 |
| Concerning the UFO sighting near Highland, Illinois | Illinois | 2005 |
| Decatur, or, Round of Applause for Your Step-Mother! | Illinois | 2005 |
| In This Temple As in The Hearts of Man For Whom He Saved The Earth | Illinois | 2005 |
| Jacksonville | Illinois | 2005 |
| John Wayne Gacy, Jr. | Illinois | 2005 |
| Let's hear that string part again, because I don't think they heard it all the way out in Bushnell | Illinois | 2005 |
| One last "Whoo-hoo!" for the Pullman | Illinois | 2005 |
| Out of Egypt, into the Great Laugh of Mankind, and I shake the dirt from my sandals as I run | Illinois | 2005 |
| Prairie Fire That Wanders About | Illinois | 2005 |
| Riffs and Variations on a single note for Jelly Roll, Earl Hines, Louis Armstrong, Baby Dodds, and the King of Swing, to name a few | Illinois | 2005 |
| The Black Hawk War, Or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself In the Morning, Or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience But You're Going to Have to Leave Now, Or... | Illinois | 2005 |
| The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts | Illinois | 2005 |
| The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us! | Illinois | 2005 |
| The Seer's Tower | Illinois | 2005 |
| The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders Part I: The Great Frontier Part II: Come to Me Only With Playthings Now | Illinois | 2005 |
| They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From the Dead!! Ahhhh! | Illinois | 2005 |
| To The Workers of The Rock River Valley Region, I have an idea concerning your predicament, and it involves an inner tube, bath mats, and 21 able-bodied men | Illinois | 2005 |
Near neighbours in this room
These are the artists whose average knob position sits nearest to Sufjan Stevens's in this room. It is a coordinate match, not a claim that they sound alike.
- Where to start with Vic Chesnutt — indie folk, 11 tracks
- Where to start with Hana Stretton — indie folk, 11 tracks
- Where to start with Wayne Shorter — bebop, 36 tracks
What the open databases say
MusicBrainz lists Sufjan Stevens as a solo artist, from Detroit, the United States and born in 1975. Its contributors tag the artist indie folk, chamber pop, singer-songwriter and art pop. These are the open database's facts, not mine — you can check them against the MusicBrainz entry.
Questions
How many Sufjan Stevens tracks are in Zubissou Sounds?
There are 22, across 1 album. 22 of them carry a date, running from 2005 to 2005. That is the whole of what this room holds — it is one person's collection, not a discography.
Is this a best-of, or a ranking?
No. Nothing here is ranked and no track is called better than another. The starting point is picked by arithmetic — the track closest to the centre of all the others on four measured axes — and the rule is printed above so you can disagree with it.
Where do the knob numbers come from?
They are set by hand, one track at a time, by the person who added the track. They are not audio analysis and not a Spotify feature. Mood, energy, density and the head/body balance each run 0 to 100. All 22 of these tracks have been read individually — nothing on this page is running on a default.
Can I listen to these here?
Not yet from this page. Zubissou Sounds is in private beta — the room itself plays through Spotify, and 22 of these 22 tracks are matched to a Spotify ID and ready to play the moment you are in. The waitlist form is at the bottom of this page.