Tallahassee by The Mountain Goats

Tallahassee, the Mountain Goats' seventh studio album, came out on 4AD on November 5, 2002, their second new record that year, and it's where John Darnielle stepped out of the boombox era. After years of cassettes and small labels like Shrimper, Ajax and Emperor Jones, this was his first album for a widely known independent, the British label 4AD, and the first to sound like a real band: old collaborators Peter Hughes and Franklin Bruno fill out the arrangements, and there's a percussion section to boot.

Tony Doogan co-produced, recorded and mixed it at Tarbox Studios in Cassadaga, New York, with the Flaming Lips' Michael Ivins lending a hand, and they knocked it out in six days. Darnielle's voice is as sharp as ever, but now it has room to breathe. "See America Right" became the first official Mountain Goats single, and "No Children" is the song that has found its way onto the countdowns.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.