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.
This 2-week dive into the albums ranked highest by critics in 1992 has been a bit discouraging. I’ve discovered a whole lot of murky and loud alternative rock that, for my money, is best left in the dustbins of history. Also a couple of rap albums and an extended disc of ambient noise.
So I’m happy to finish the span with a refreshingly melodic and resonant cut from k.d. lang. Lang followed her country crossover masterpiece Absolute Torch and Twang with 1992’s Ingenue, a full-on dive into adult contemporary territory.
I’m swiftly realizing that while 1992 was an important year for me personally, it was kind of a shit year for music.
To be fair, I listed my ten favorite 1992 albums and covered a lot of excellent ground (any year that includes R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People can’t be all bad).
But the critical consensus around the albums I haven’t heard is amounting to a great big disappointment. My look back at 1982 unearthed a few gems I quickly downloaded. No such luck this time around.
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