Not So Fast There Superman

By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Jul 5, 2005 7:55PM

Indie kids the world over have been salivating in anticipation of the new Sufjan Stevens album Illinois, the second of fifty albums about the fifty states, that was to be released today. Pitchfork even gave the new album, due to be released today, an astounding 9.2 rating. Mr Stevens himself even appeared on NPR’s Eight Forty-Eight this morning to promote his album…due to be released today.

Only it wasn’t released today. Sort of.

DC Comics has issued a cease and desist order pulling the new disc before it even hit the shelves due to the use of Superman on the album’s cover. To your left is the amended and much less exciting cover. The cover also contains depictions of Al Capone, the Hancock and some UFOs but there has been no word from any of those camps on whether or not they plan any legal action.

Chicagoist was lucky enough to snag a copy from an unusually slow Border’s out in the suburbs – possibly the first time we’ve found anything good about the ‘burbs, actually – so there are a few copies floating around out there despite the recall.

DC’s thoughts behind this move are unclear. Chicagoist enjoys entertaining the theory that the comics giant fears people will mistake this album as the soundtrack to the new Superman movie currently in production rather than the lush folk-rock album only tangentially connected to the state of Illinois that it really is. You know, because that’s the sort of dumb judgments large corporations jump to. Ha ha?