Sufjan Stevens — The BQE

It was definitely a relief when Sufjan Stevens recently declared that his 50 states album project is in the trash. That cleared the way for The BQE to be examined impartially — free of the assumption that it's taking the place of what could have been a great album about Rhode Island or South Dakota (or maybe another disc of outtakes from Illinois. Laugh all you want, but it wouldn't surprise me a bit).

In fact, it's best to view Stevens' ode to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway as a project completely outside of his regular musical output. This package was put together with the focus on its film component. The accompanying soundtrack — 13 fully instrumental tracks — is not an especially compelling listen as an independent unit. At its core, it's an ordinary orchestral suite. It's not horrible, but Stevens is no world-class composer.

The film (which Stevens shot himself) is a mishmash of stationary shots of buildings, traffic jams, and Stevens' friends hula hooping (seriously). I had been hoping for an educational voice-over but instead simply found myself listening to the soundtrack for a second time.

When heard in conjunction with the film, the music seems to sit in contradiction to what Stevens is trying to say about this malevolent thoroughfare. The album booklet is peppered with words like "invader," "shock" and "awareness." Stevens describes the Expressway as "baffling to drive" and calls it severing, pillaging, diseased and anarchic. But this soundtrack that he has created is so uplifting it could be the backdrop for an animated Disney movie.

Bottom line: You shouldn't buy this just because it's a Sufjan Stevens album. Only pick it up if you're seriously interested in infrastructure.

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