God knows what goes on in Sufjan Stevens's head -- he's a Christian so it feels safe to invoke a "god" in this context -- but it's gotta be a frantic, crowded, magical place.

Just look at the song titles on Illinois alone, before we even start to discuss the meticulously researched, ultra-literate contents of the album's lyric sheet or the meticulously composed, arranged and performed (mostly by Stevens himself) baroque-pop soundtracks he seems endlessly able to conjure out of thin air to put behind his words. Case in point: "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, 'I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Them Until They Are Off Our Lands!'"

That mouthful is the sign of a busy mind. And the prolific Stevens definitely has a busy mind. So busy, in fact, that when he touted Illinois in 1995 as the second instalment of a 50-album series honouring every single American state -- the first would be 2003's Michigan -- pretty much everyone bought into the joke because it really wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that he'd actually see the project through. He might yet, too. You really never know with this guy. Dude likes to keep busy.

Anyway, Illinois is arguably the most beloved of Sufjan albums amongst the Stevens faithful, somehow managing to make songs about UFOs, Indigenous genocide and serial killer John Wayne Gacy delicately palatable while also somehow making a sonic palette that spans spare, sad-eyed Nick Drake/Elliott Smith-esque folk, weird electronica and lavish orchestral set pieces that border on show tunes sound entirely cohesive within the record's 74-minute running time. Gotta love a mad genius.

TRACKLISTING:

1. Concerning the UFO Sighting near Highland, Illinois
2. 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, 'I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Them Until They Are Off Our Lands!'
3. Come On! Feel the Illinoise! (Part I: The World's Columbian Exposition/ Part II: Carl Sandburg Visits Me in a Dream)
4. John Wayne Gacy, Jr.
5. Jacksonville
6. A Short Reprise for Mary Todd, Who Went Insane, but for Very Good Reasons
7. Decatur, or, Round of Applause for Your Stepmother!
8. One Last 'Whoo-Hoo!' for the Pullman!!
9. Go! Chicago! Go! Yeah!
10. Casimir Pulaski Day
11. To the Workers of the Rock River Valley Region, I Have an Idea Concerning Your Predicament, and It Involves Tube Socks, a Paper Airplane, and Twenty-Two Able-Bodied Men
12. The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts
13. Prairie Fire That Wanders About
14. A Conjunction of Drones Simulating the Way in Which Sufjan Stevens Has an Existential Crisis in the Great Godfrey Maze
15. The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!
16. They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhhh!
17. Let's Hear That String Part Again, Because I Don't Think They Heard It All the Way Out in Bushnell
18. In This Temple as in the Hearts of Man for Whom He Saved the Earth
19. The Seer's Tower
20. The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders (Part I: The Great Frontier  / Part II: Come to Me Only with Playthings Now)
21. 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
22. Out of Egypt, into the Great Laugh of Mankind, and I Shake the Dirt from My Sandals as I Run
23. The Avalanche