- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Take The BQE on its own terms and there’s plenty to enjoy.
-
The BQE is best listened to in complete ignorance of the track titles, packaging, or even professed subject matter. The music speaks best when it speaks for itself.
-
The gear changes on this particular autobahn are swift and sometimes a little clunky.
-
The BQE is probably best classified as an unusually successful vanity project, as well as evidence of Stevens' restless creativity.
-
While The BQE might not put Stevens in the running as the most groundbreaking voice in contemporary classical music, it's certainly a damn sight better than the orchestral efforts squeezed out over the last several years by the likes of Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, et al.
-
Stevens’ lengthy essay gets pretentious quickly, and the CD of music has little appeal to those who don’t already listen to classical.
-
Under The RadarIt feels like a project, something done for school as a kid, with the kind of whimsical subject matter that a child might dream up, but carried out with tremendous artistic vision and skill. [Fall 2009, p.60]
-
His ideas are realized with the confidence of a seasoned composer, comfortable with implementing all corners of the orchestra to wondrous effect.
-
Complex and artful, there’s no need to understand fugues and canons to appreciate this--its utter perfection and joy is self-evident.
-
It’s a fanciful and deftly assembled showcase of textures and moods, lovely and capricious. Taken alone, however, the music made this listener pine for a fistful of Stevens’s evocative melodies and commanding lyrics to anchor the ornamentation.
-
It’s a compliment to Stevens when one notices that listening to the music alone is rewarding and yet, the shots from the documentary are what run vivid in your head.
-
To be sure, The BQE score isn’t an utter failure on its own, but it’s clearly missing the dramatic effect found in the rest of Stevens’ eclectic seven-album catalogue.
-
Pop go the classics with Sufjan Stevens.
-
If you love car culture, traffic, suburbs or Stevens’s lyrics, this might be where you turn off.
-
As lyrical a musician as he is, without his commanding use of language (the song cycle is entirely instrumental), the BQE loses some momentum near the end, but by then it's become clear that, as is the case with all of his projects, the term "half-assed" does not apply.
-
The BQE is a lushly extravagant score that merges quite easily into Sufjan's grand catalogue. All who lend an ear to his opus will look upon the titular thoroughfare with a kinder eye, even if that view does not have the benefit of reminiscence.
-
It is at times derivative, but it is overall a transcendent work by one of the most promising musician-artists in the contemporary scene.
-
It’s his most ambitious undertaking to date, and while it presents no obvious singles or easy entry points, he pulls it off without it feeling pretentious or ponderous.
-
MojoImpressive as it all is, a genuine follow-up to Illinois feels overdue. [Dec 2009, p. 92]
-
UncutIt's occasionally very beautiful, but this is so far removed from values of immediacy and accessibility that Stevens' core audience are likely to be left non-plussed. [Dec 2009, p. 113]
-
Q MagazineInspired by New York's Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, The BQE is an ambitious orchestration to accompany the film of the same name. [Dec 2009 p. 127]
-
The audio-visual experience, fondly known as The BQE, centers on the history of New York’s Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, and its conceit works because of its composer’s breadth of influence.
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 13 out of 21
-
Mixed: 4 out of 21
-
Negative: 4 out of 21
-
Oct 31, 2018
-
Feb 23, 2017
-
Oct 31, 2018Not going to lie. I expected more from this. However there are some good parts - like when it ended. At least I gave it a go, I'll tell myself.