 Illinois ( styled Sufjan Stevens <unk> You To : Come On Feel the Illinoise on the cover ; sometimes written as Illinoise ) is a 2005 concept album by American indie folk songwriter Sufjan Stevens . It is his fifth studio album , and features songs referencing places , events , and persons related to the U.S. state of Illinois . Illinois is Stevens ' second based on a U.S. state — part of a planned series of fifty that began with the 2003 album Michigan that Stevens has since acknowledged was a gag . 
