Sufjan Stevens & Prog Rock

Sufjan has always been a bit of an outsider in the popular music scene. In a market saturated with manufactured rubbish his music has always stood apart. I regard his albums ‘’Come On Feel The Illinoise!’’ and ‘’Michigan’’ as absolute masterpieces but his new album takes him further away from his Indie heritage and nearer to a experimental sound that isn’t too far away from Prog Rock. Indeed some articles have linked his new sound to Prog Rock as you can read here:  

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/10/18/2326942/review-sufjan-stevens-finds-the.html

Case in point is the 25 minute opus ‘’Impossible Soul’’. A musical epic that journeys through many different themes and Sufjan describes it as a ‘’intense, emotional, psychotherapy experiment.” Well hear it is for you to decide:

It doesn’t sound like a typical prog epic but isn’t being progressive about pushing boundaries and creating new and exciting music? I applaud him for being a true artist in the barren wasteland of today’s popular music.  

I don't really like Sufjan Stevens, Enjoy Your Rabbit is a pretty good album though. But his other stuff is pretty boring imo.

Sufjan Stevens and Bonnie "Prine" Billie are two of a very few "new" cats that I dig.....don't know if it's prog, but that's never bothered me in the slightest.  Highly recommended.

I didnt like the posted song very much, but I love Illinois.  Sufjan is not prog but he is still great

harmonium.ro wrote: I listened to his new album and I can't recall when was the last time I was SO disappointed. Illinoise grew on me very fast and I had really high hopes. Not only that he sailed as far as possible away from prog-like artsy indie-folk towards indietronica, but the quality I found to be very low and his autotune "epic" an abomination bellow its MTV soul-pop counterparts.

have you checked out the EP 'All Delighted People' he released just before the new album? Its like a direct continuation of the sound of Illinois. It's great if you need a little more Sufjan but you dislike his latest

^ obviously a grower is a subjective term. But the album sounded terrible on the first few listens, then I gave it a week. then it sounded better, and its sounding better each time since then. Besides I think its possible to tell when an album will grow on you sometimes (although I do know a few albums that took a few months to a year to like)

I think Sufjan Stevens should be reconsidered for addition. His music is much more "progressive" (as opposed to "prog") than a huge amount of bands currently listed. By far. Illinois is proof of that.

Sorry, just my opinion as a younger listener.

Also, why does the prog community not get along with the indie community (im just generalizing here)? Both groups would practically be the same if they lived in the same decade.