Music Review: The BQE - Sufjan Stevens

Note: This review will be appearing in the December edition of the Bulldog Bulletin

Have you ever taken the time to wonder what makes geniuses the way they are? The DNA of every human being is nearly the exact same as every other human, so what sets them apart? Which chromosome did Einstein have that helped him discover relativity first, and what made Picasso see things the way that he did? How was Billy Shakespeare able to put into words basically every story that we could ever experience and why was Isaac Newton the first one to discover why apples were always falling on people’s noggins? What makes these extraordinary people tick?
While we may never be able to fully answer that question, The BQE by singer/songwriter/composer/geographer/cinematographer extraordinaire Sufjan Stevens may have given us our best clue to date. This is because listening to The BQE is probably the closest thing we will ever get to hearing what goes on inside of a genius’ head.
Those who have listened to the music of Sufjan Stevens can instantly recognize his work because it carries melodies of epic proportions, yet they are delivered in the most subtle and beautiful of ways. After four tantalizingly long years since the release of Illinois, the second installment of his more than ambitious fifty states project, Sufjan finally released his new project called The BQE which is a classical soundtrack to footage of the dubious Brooklyn-Queens Expressway that he shot himself with a 16mm camera. The suite is comprised of seven movements, complete with preludes and postludes. He presented the footage with a live orchestra for three sold out nights at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Yes, to summarize this is a banjo-wielding folk singer composing a forty-minute classical suite set to home video footage of an infamously monotonous expressway – and this is only a microcosm of Stevens’ ambition. Just for kicks, the LP comes with a forty page color comic book written by (guess who) Sufjan Stevens.
Despite the depressing subject matter the soundtrack itself is pretty much the complete opposite. “It’s an ugly, monolithic source of traffic and pollution and the object of scorn. So I decided to go the other way and recreate the BQE as I would have imagined it, which is as an object of beauty and perpetual motion and reflections and lights and colors. But it’s a complete fabrication; the beautification of a monumental beast,” says Stevens. The music is constantly in motion, swirling and racing around the outer highways and overpasses of your mind. Starting with “Prelude On The Esplanade”, you’re transported to the guardrails of the asphalt splendor and let into Stevens’ idea of the perfect highway. You don’t need to even see the film to imagine Sufjan’s vision because it so easily replicates the hustle and bustle of New York. Yet, as a whole, The BQE could easily serve as the soundtrack of the classic movies of Jimmy Stewart or Cary Grant, or even to the silent films that were never given the luxury of sound and music. Its themes are truly universal.
After discovering the magnificence of Sufjan Stevens with the help of my good friend (and my Monthly Music Review predecessor) Chris Hooker and then in turn digesting every note of Seven Swans, Michigan, and Illinoise, I was still left wondering why I was so attracted to the music and why it was so addictive. What was it about these songs that made me keep coming back to them whenever I had the opportunity? What made them work so well? I found my answer in The BQE – and whether this is what Sufjan intended for I’m not quite sure. The fluttering woodwinds and repeating horn riffs from Illinois are found here, and so are the mournful melodies from Michigan and Seven Swans. All of the aspects of his prior works come together in this masterpiece, forming a musical story of epic proportions. I’m not afraid to proclaim The BQE on the same levels as the works of Gershwin; it leaves me speechless at its conclusion the same way as “Rhapsody in Blue”. All this from a first-time composer who just months ago was questioning why he still made music? Simply incredible.
The BQE solidifies in my mind why right now Sufjan Stevens is head and shoulders above everyone else in the music industry as far as creativity and musical prowess are concerned. He is constantly challenging himself to do entirely new projects – rumor has it that he wants to an instrumental album that “evokes insomnia” – and reaches parts of the human soul with his music that no one else even knew existed. I will cherish The BQE in my album collection for a long time simply because it gave me a glimpse, if only a partial one perhaps, at what kind of music flows within the mind of a genius.