My New Years Jam

It's probably too early to start talking about the New Year, but fuck you, because Sufjan Stevens' song Impossible Soul, a symphony almost, is wonderful, and will fill the completely unnecessary role of "New Years Jam" for a second year in a row. The second movement (that's right, people still do that shit) is really what clinches the position. The whole album is kind of summarized by this track. Strange, discordant, beautiful, experimental, scary, uplifting, danceable.

Lame, amateur musical criticism aside, one guy (an actual musical critic) called my favorite part an "epic train wreck." I have to disagree because it makes me want to dance in the whitest way possible, while presenting some of the most uplifting, completely un-cheesy and earnest, lyrics of the whole album, maybe ever (hyperbole). If you actually want to listen to the song, you can skip to about the 12 minute mark.

Boy, we can do much more together. It's not so impossible.

After bringing us to this wonderful high, Sufjan relents, granting a reprieve to the overwhelming musical insanity that flows consistently through most of the album in a pretty wonderful way. The music falls back to where the album started, with the musical stylings that made him popular in the first place, killing me with the final words that never fail to remind me of so much in the past: Boy, we made such a mess together.