“The Predatory Wasp Of The Palisades Is Out to Get Us!” by Sufjan Stevens

"The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!" comes from Illinois, Sufjan Stevens' fifth studio album and the second entry in a planned series of fifty albums about US states, a plan he has since admitted was a joke. The credits here are nearly all his: Stevens wrote it, recorded it, engineered it and produced it, with Katrina Kerns and Shara Nova on backing vocals.

He made Illinois in New York City between late 2004 and early 2005, bouncing between venues with lo-fi gear and a heap of instruments, and he filled it with the state's history, places and people, stitched together with stories of his own. Critics swooned, Metacritic named it the best-reviewed album of 2005, and years later it became the Broadway musical Illinoise.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.