The Age of Adz
album by Sufjan Stevens
The Age of Adz ( AHDZ) is the sixth studio album by American singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens, released on October 12, 2010, by Asthmatic Kitty. It was Stevens' first song-based full-length album in five years, since the release of Illinois in 2005.
The album features heavy use of electronics augmented by orchestration and takes inspiration from the apocalyptic artwork of schizophrenic artist Royal Robertson. Stevens' use of electronics marked a radical departure from much of his previous work—most notably from Seven Swans and Michigan. Stevens had previously explored electronics on his album Enjoy Your Rabbit. Unlike Illinois, the lyrics do not explore events, characters or setting, but deal instead with themes and emotions on a personal level.
Critics praised the intimacy of the album, but many were divided over the change in style that Stevens had taken. Nonetheless, it appeared on several "best of 2010" lists—including those of Paste, The New York Times and MTV. Commercially, the album gave Stevens his career's best first-week sales to date and was his highest-charting album to date, peaking at number seven on the Billboard 200.
Background and recording
In 2006, Sufjan Stevens released an album of extra material left over from Illinois (originally conceived as a double album), titled The Avalanche, as well as an album of Christmas music titled Songs for Christmas (produced in parts between 2001 and 2006). Following the release of The Avalanche, Stevens expressed a dissatisfaction with his music, stating in an interview with Pitchfork in 2006: "I'm getting tired of my voice.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Age of Adz” is album by Sufjan Stevens. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through album, Sufjan and Stevens, not as a finished interpretation.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7712833. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2010, 2005, 2006 and 2001.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Age of Adz” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.