Isn't it Ironic? by Ian Kinane

Author:Ian Kinane [Kinane, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367530815
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2021-04-26T00:00:00+00:00

This is another picture of pursuit, of the idea that the self is perhaps a web of chaotic texts, but not merely that. In Stevens’s compositions, we see that the fragmentation of the self is not because of its disappearance (or the fact that it never existed) but its inflatedness. Stevens claims here that truth is not necessarily found or constructed, but that it is an independent reality that must impose itself, even write itself, on the individual, the object of impassioned pursuit. In the live performances of the album Age of Adz, Stevens argued that the more one focuses on the self, the less human he or she becomes; the self is then flattened, commodified, and ultimately destructive. This flattening can only be remedied through an act of redemptive recreation, an apocalyptic visitation from the outside. This ghostly visitation must, in a sense, ‘murder’ the consumer self in order to recreate it. This position, obviously very much in line with orthodox Christian theology, still provides the framework of Stevens’s own relationships to the texts he both reads and creates. He is author and reader, he is a fragmented self, attempting to be an agent of transformation and recreation.

The Age of Adz is a journey through what author Douglas Coupland (1994) calls ‘ironic hell’, a space of distrust, doubt, and cynicism in which ‘irony scorche[s] everything that it touched’ (286, 273). Yet Stevens forges his way through the flames, arriving on the other side with an authentic faith. The word ‘authentic’ is one of the most frequent descriptors used by Stevens’s fans – many of whom are not Christians – in the Facebook fan group named ‘Sufjan Stevens Feelsposting’ (2020). One member writes: ‘[h]is storytelling on every song is just so magical and immersive it really didn’t matter to me that he was religious and I wasn’t. He sung of the beauty of his faith but also his doubts and strained relationship at times’ (‘Sufjan Stevens Feelsposting’ 2020, n.p.). Interestingly, the word ‘magical’ has connotations of enchantment, and it is often used to describe postsecular art. Other frequent terms used to describe Stevens’s music in the fan group are ‘genuine’, ‘personal’, and ‘mysterious’. Much attention is given to the fact that the artist is not ‘preaching’ to his listeners but sharing his own faith journey in an authentic manner. In a Reddit thread discussing the religious nature of much of Stevens music, one writer notes that: ‘[m]ost “Christian” music makes me glad to be atheist; Sufjan’s stuff (particularly Seven Swans) made me wish I was Christian’ (augustfirst 2011, n.p.).

While Sufjan Stevens’s writing is famously cryptic – and while it takes a great deal of effort to ‘decode’ the symbols of his frequently ambiguous lyrical narratives – Craig Finn’s writing is the polar opposite; it is clear and buoyant, inviting listeners and concert-goers to join him in embracing the joy that can only be found when their ironic skin is shed. As Andy Walton (2015) explains in The Christian Post: ‘[a]t the end of most gigs [Finn] tells the crowd that there is “So.

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