Ah, 2002. Who could forget the International Year of Ecotourism, Mountains, and the Outback (in Australia)? If that wasn’t enough, the queen celebrated her golden jubilee, the king came back with a bang to win the World Cup, and Hollywood decided it would release (almost) nothing but sequels. Of course, there was also a lot of great music, and here’s a selection of our favourites.

Tracklisting:

1) Broken Social Scene – Anthems For A Seventeen Year Old Girl
2) Say Hi To Your Mom – Kill the Cat
3) The Decemberists – July, July!
4) Spoon – The Way We Get By
5) The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Part 1
6) The Mountain Goats – The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out of Denton
7) The Libertines – Time For Heroes
8) Mclusky – To Hell With Good Intentions
9) Pavement – Baptiss Blacktick
10) Sleater-Kinney – One Beat
11) The Mountain Goats – No Children
12) Okkervil River – Westfall
13) Thee More Shallows – Where Are You Now?
14) Julie Doiron – All Their Broken Hearts
15) Múm – Green Grass of Tunnel
16) Iron & Wine – Faded From Winter
17) Carissa’s Wierd – So You Wanna Be A Superhero
18) Wilco – Radio Cure
19) Songs:Ohia – Didn’t It Rain
20) Sigur Ros – Untitled I

What did we miss from 2002? Let us know via the usual channels! Be sure to check out our posts on 2000 and 2001, and come back next month when we’ll be turning our attention to… 2003.

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The album opens with ‘I Know You’re Gonna Leave Me’, which starts as what appears to be a peppy little folk/country song. But some sudden electric guitars kick things up a notch and by the end the thing is a fully-fledged rock song, with crashing drums and Porter’s repeated cry of “I know you’re gonna leave me all alone!”

Next up is a country-folk ode to Chris Bell of Big Star, whose death in 1978 led him to become another member of the so-called “27 Club”, a group of famous musicians (including Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain and Jimi Hendrix) who have died at the tender age of twenty seven. Porter himself has now reached that fabled age, and so decided to base his album on this troubling idea, using it as a springboard to explore topics such as mortality, legacy and coming-of-age in the modern world.

Another stand-out is ‘Mountains’ which stands tall and indomitable at the album’s centre, opening with a repetitive percussive thump and sober pianos and some gentle acoustic guitar. This is a proper folk-rock ballad, epic in scope and romantically reflective in outlook. The song addresses religion and faith and what happens when you get to a point where neither offers much solace. “When I was young my father said that faith could move a mountain / Now there’s mountains as far as I can see,” he sings at the start, before defiantly insisting at the close, “And as I stare across the vast expanse I can hear my father shouting / The mountains are all that I can see.”

The real triumph of the album is the way in which Porter inhabits a range of genres and seems entirely comfortable in each. He has shown himself adept at playing the rock & roll star, country singer and folk troubadour, all in the space of a single album. Best of all, it works. Not a single track feels out of place or shoehorned in for effect. Fans of Ryan Adams, Josh Ritter, Wilco and even Springsteen will doubtless also be fans of this.

You can get 27 right now via Black Mesa Records, or as a digital download via the M. Lockwood Porter Bandcamp page.

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