Sufjan for me. Michigan, Seven Swans, Illinois, The Age of Adz and Carrie & Lowell are all amazing. The All Delighted People EP has some amazingly good songs too (the title tracks are just okay, but The Owl and The Tanager + Djohariah in particular are incredible). A lot of his Christmas songs are great. A Sun Came is uneven, but still has a few gems. The rest of his stuff (Enjoy Your Rabbit, The BQE, etc) is interesting, but I don't feel quite as strongly about it.
I think a lot of people read him "wrong" (if you can even say such a thing about art). People sometimes describe him as twee or gimmicky, but that's mostly because of his sense of humor, which serves a purpose - either as plain misdirection or as an attempt to sound less self-important. It's about finding a balance between all the human drama that consumes us and the fact that none of us is the center of the universe.
It's also easy to be suspicious of his music because a lot of it is just so pretty. Once upon a time I used to love pretty music. Then l I got tired of hearing beautiful-sounding songs and thinking I could LOVE them, only to be left feeling empty and disappointed after a few listens. What keeps me coming back to Sufjan's music is that he's an amazing writer, and underneath the surface his songs are sad and conflicted and joyful, full of pain with some impossible hope for redemption.
The Owl and the Tanager is my favorite song of his. It's the most beautiful song I've ever heard about being abused as a child by someone you trust, with all the conflicted and unresolved emotions involved in a relationship you aren't actually running away from. All you want is to love and to be loved, and the "love" you are given feels necessary and oppressive at the same time. It consumes you and leaves you weary and violated, and yet you long for some sort of respite in it, for some sense of love and safety, because you are a child and you need it and you don't know any better. It's just heartbreaking. It's direct and poetic at the same time; it never sounds like an exercise in creative writing, even though it's incredibly well-crafted; and he never ever dials it in live.
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