So just spitballin’ here, but an album about things from the state of Illinois does NOT sound like a recipe for musical goodness… I was also fascinated by the fact that this was voted the best album of 2005… No offense to Mr. Stevens, as a multi-instrumentalist – he is certainly very talented, but I would argue that “Illinois” being the best album of 2005, says more about the lack of quality music in 2005, as opposed to how exceptional this album is… If this came out in 1977, it’s not even in the Top 500 of that year… I would argue that 70%+ of the albums on the 1,001 list SHOULD be coming from the 60’s & 70’s… Artists created music for the love of their art and craft back then, as there really wasn’t a lot of money in music at the time… Once that changed in the late 70’s and early 80’s – everyone subsequently got in it for the money, and the corporate formulas took over… I’ve listened to a handful of self-made albums (i.e. where the artist plays every instrument for the most part…), and this was probably the best… Most of them just have a weird sound, like there wasn’t enough diversity in the playing, but this one sort of escaped that… Mr. Stevens is very talented, and definitely has a unique and original sound – so points for that, and for what he was trying to accomplish, the album is fairly well-done… My main complaint, is that after a while, all of the songs sorta just sound the same… Enjoyed the piano-based songs better than the banjo ones – but that’s just me, and never thought I’d hear a song about “John Wayne Gacy”, but that’s “Illinois” for you…