Here’s the third straight 2002 album that I discovered only after its release. It’s probably telling that the albums I discovered when they came out that year are sitting higher on my list (we’ll get to most of those next week).
I learned about Stew just a year later after the release of 2003’s Something Deeper Than These Changes. My wife heard a segment on the album on NPR and suggested I check it out. I was instantly smitten and sought out the rest of his discography.
Tift Merritt’s 2002 debut, Bramble Rose, is another album I discovered well after its release. I heard the singer-songwriter’s 2004 sophomore album, Tambourine, first.
Bramble Rose is one of two autographed albums in my collection. The other is also by Merritt, 2012’s Traveling Alone. I guess you could say she and I are tight.
Over the next few weeks I’ll dive into the next installment of an occasional series here at Meet Me in Montauk, where I focus on a single year and post songs from both my favorite albums and the acclaimed albums I’ve never heard.
I started this series with 1972 (my birth year) and subsequently covered 1982 and 1992. Now I jump ahead another decade to 2002, a year after the 9/11 attacks, the year I turned 30, the year my first daughter was born.
Elvis Costello’s many reissues of his back catalog have unearthed a lot of excellent tracks. Today’s Random iTunes selection is not among them.
This alternate take of Imperial Bedroom‘s ‘Little Savage’ is nearly incoherent, especially vocally, a fact that Costello himself acknowledges in the disc’s liner notes:
Apparently the Random iTunes Fairy felt it had been too long since Beyoncé graced the blog with her presence. So here is a cut from Queen B’s 2006 album B’Day.
The record was Beyoncé’s second solo effort and, looking back now, it’s a charming glimpse at the R&B diva before she took over the world.
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