The Soft Revolution

New York City's Webster Hall was filled to capacity for the Plug awards, a celebration of the independent music community and its latest critical darlings. The performers booked for the evening were a diverse representation of the independent scene--so diverse, in fact, that you'd have been hard-pressed to explain the music they made to anyone who'd checked out during pop music's two-decade evolution into a million subdivisions and subgenres. They included turntablist Rjd2, the thrash metal band Dillinger Escape Plan, underground rapper Aesop Rock, strident spoken-word artist Saul Williams, and the modish pop-punk group Ted Leo & the Pharmacists.

It had taken a leap of imagination by the organizers to envision the audiences for these artists being brought together in one venue. But the artists did have one thing in common: noise. The performances were theatrical, aggressive, demanding of attention. Which has long been the stereotype of the music of youth, and indeed the entire culture of youth. The kids have short. Attention. Spans. They-want-quick-cut-edits. They like their entertainment loud fast out-oF-cOnTRol!

There's a problem with this theory.

Although the average age of the audience at the Plug awards was probably 25, the evening's most eagerly anticipated performer was a folk singer named Sufjan Stevens. Added to the bill at the last minute, he sang two songs, and offered a break from all the noise. His style was in keeping with the thrift-store chic of underground pop--mussed brown hair, blue jeans, a sleeveless winter vest. His affect, though, couldn't have been more different. Where the other artists leaped and lunged in an attempt to pump up the audience, Stevens was beatific. Lit by a crepuscular spotlight, he played an acoustic guitar and was accompanied by a single backup singer, who stood to one side with her arms crossed modestly behind her back. They performed before a projection of a rolling blue sky filled with puffy white clouds.

The first song was "Casimir Pulaski Day." Nominally about a minor holiday for a Polish-born Revolutionary War general, it's actually about a young man lingering over the hospital bed of his beloved, a woman afflicted with osteosarcoma, cancer of the bone. The title simply pinpoints the day on which the song's most critical events unfold. At first it was difficult to make out the lyrics over the chatter of the crowd--doubly so because Stevens delivered them in a kind of whispered, melodic narration.