“Impossible Soul (25 Minutes!)” by Sufjan Stevens

"Impossible Soul" comes from The Age of Adz, the sixth studio album Sufjan Stevens released on Asthmatic Kitty in October 2010, and he wrote it alone, words and music. The record was his first full-length collection of songs in five years, since Illinois, and a sharp left turn: heavy electronics shot through with orchestration, a clean break from the sound of Seven Swans and Michigan, with the apocalyptic art of Royal Robertson as its lodestar. Where Illinois dealt in places and characters, these songs turn inward, toward his own feelings.

Critics admired how intimate it was even as they argued over the new direction, and it became the highest-charting album of his career to that point.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.