Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	80/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
The A.V. Club	B
Entertainment Weekly	A−
The Guardian
The Independent
Los Angeles Times
NME	7/10
Pitchfork	8.4/10
Rolling Stone
Spin	7/10

The Age of Adz (pronounced /ɒdz/) is the sixth studio album by American singer/songwriter Sufjan Stevens, released on October 12, 2010 by Asthmatic Kitty. It was Stevens' first song-based full-length album in five years, since the release of Illinois in 2005.

The album features a heavy use of electronics augmented by orchestration, and takes inspiration from the apocalyptic artwork of schizophrenic artist Royal Robertson. Stevens' use of electronics marked a radical departure from much of his previous work—most notably from Seven Swans and Michigan. Unlike Illinois, the lyrics do not explore events, characters or setting, but deal instead with themes and emotions on a personal level.

Critics praised the intimacy of the album, but many were divided over the change in style that Stevens had taken. Nonetheless, it appeared on several "best of 2010" lists—including those of Paste, The New York Times and MTV. Commercially, the album gave Stevens his career's best first week sales to date and was his highest charting album to date, peaking in the top ten on the Billboard 200.

In 2006, Sufjan Stevens released an album of extra material left over from Illinois (originally conceived as a double album), titled The Avalanche, as well as an album of Christmas music titled Songs for Christmas (produced in parts between 2001 and 2006). Following the release of The Avalanche, Stevens expressed a dissatisfaction with his music, stating in an interview with Pitchfork in 2006: "I'm getting tired of my voice. I'm getting tired of ... the banjo. I'm getting tired of ... the trumpet". In 2009 Stevens admitted that his Fifty States Project—an attempt to write an album for each of the 50 U.S. States—had been a "promotional gimmick" and not something that he had seriously intended to complete. In the same year he released The BQE, an orchestral suite accompanying a home-made film dedicated to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. In an interview with BeatRoute Magazine in 2010, Stevens stated "[The BQE] kinda sabotaged the mechanical way of approaching my music, which was basically narrative long-form. It really opened things up for me. It also confused things as well. I don’t think I ever really fully recovered from that process". On August 20, 2010, without prior announcement, Stevens released the EP All Delighted People, and less than one week later, announced The Age of Adz to be released on October 12.

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