Inspired by the vestiges of a bygone industrial age in places like Flint and Ypsilanti, as well as the enduring grandeur of Tahquamenon Falls, Sufjan Stevens’s Michigan was, to borrow from William Butler Yeats by way of Joan Didion, something of a “slouch towards Bethlehem.” Set against the backdrop of a nation grappling with the effect of globalization, the slow creep of post-modern isolationism, and the trauma of 9/11, the album serves as both a freeze-frame of an era and a signpost of a new direction for indie music in 2003.
Michigan was the first entry in Stevens’s 50 States Project, with a proposed album about each state in the United States. The ambitious series was ultimately revealed to be, at least in part, a joke, with only one other album—2005’s Illinois—ever completed.
Michigan isn’t just Stevens’s home state, but a microcosm of the broader challenges faced by Americans during the Rust Belt’s decline. The album depicts resilience amid hardship, the beauty in everyday battles, and the inescapable pull of history. It’s also a tribute to memory. Throughout the album’s 15 tracks, the spirit of Michigan weeps, sings, and imparts stories begging to be told. Every introspective verse and poignant chord captures an intimate piece of Stevens’s life while also transcending borders to reflect the country’s mood.
On “The Upper Peninsula,” Stevens describes living in a trailer home with broken windows, singing of hard work and harsh winters. His voice is frail and fractured as he sings, “Once when our mother called/She had a voice of last year’s cough,” on “Romulus.” When Stevens cries, “I was ashamed of her,” it feels like the primal tearing of a familial bond.
No matter how personal the songs on Michigan seem, though, they give voice to a nation touched by industrial decay, war in the Middle East, and the rapid evolution of technology. The use of brass isn’t celebratory, but rather a representation of the tolling of a bygone era, of industries faded into the annals of a Rust Belt history. And in place of digital elements, Stevens opts for purer, more elemental sounds like mournful piano chords.
Within this landscape of hardship, though, Stevens also seeks unity and hope. The instrumentation throughout Michigan is so layered and radiant that even the simplest components—a banjo, a hushed trumpet, a whimsical xylophone—feel revelatory. There’s an entire festival in every note. On “All Good Naysayers, Speak Up! Or Forever Hold Your Peace,” for example, Stevens merrily bounces from one chord to another like a pebble dancing across the surface of a lake. The song’s lyrics are a call to action, to stand up, to tap into resilience: “Often not the State is advocation/If we form a power of recognition.”
Elsewhere, “For the Widows in Paradise, for the Fatherless in Ypsilanti” is so heartfelt, so pure, and so intricately woven that it forms the blueprint for what indie folk would become. Although Michigan didn’t pioneer the concept of regional storytelling—artists like Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Elliot Smith, and Nick Drake had already laid that groundwork—it stands out for its fresh fusion of melancholic folk music, grand orchestral arrangements, intimate vocals, and candid, diaristic lyricism. Artists like Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes carried this tradition into the stark, silent winters of Wisconsin and the dramatic, sprawling vistas of the American West, respectively.
Michigan’s influence can also be heard in Phoebe Bridgers’s melancholic Punisher. “For the Widows in Paradise” finds an echo in Bridgers’s “Graceland Too,” where banjo is handled with the same gentle finesse—unassuming yet loaded with emotional intensity. Further evidence of their shared musical lineage can be found in the uncanny similarity of the songs’ earnest refrains of “I’ll do anything for you.” While calling Punisher a direct descendant of Michigan might be reductive, they both certainly speak a similar language of sorrow.
While Michigan isn’t Stevens’s finest album, it’s undoubtedly his most pivotal. His ambitious optimism defined indie music in the early 2000s: lyrical storytelling that encapsulated the culture, history, and ethos of local geographies. Two decades later, the album continues to reverberate through the corridors of time, as timeless as the Great Lakes themselves.
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