Just do the whole Midwest at once.

It may be too soon to really make a valid judgement, but having heard a few tracks from the forthcoming Sufjan Stevens record, I can't say I'm tremendously impressed. Basically, if you liked Michigan (which I did, mostly) and dislike change (which I don't) then you will be completely happy with Illinois. It's the same pretty acoustic guitar/light percussion/delicately arranged/neat narrative stuff that he does so well, but the problem is that it's all he's done. I mean, I wasn't expecting post-rock or free-jazz, but a bit more expansion that what he's given us here. Again, I've only heard three tracks, so maybe the noise experiments are buried in the record.

On the other hand, "Casimir Pulaski Day" is probably the finest example, next to "Romulus", of what Stevens does so well - literate, slightly twee, lacily beautiful pop songs. Still, I can't shake the disappointment that this is virtually exactly like Michigan. I wonder if the tracking and pacing will still be the same. I mean, 50 states is ambitious, but if they're all the same album just retitled, then it won't really be that difficult. I'm holding out for Alaska. Glacial ice sheets? No downtrodden middle-class factory workers? How's he going to handle that? He'll have to do something different.