With "Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground" in 2002, Bright Eyes became one of the year's most celebrated "new" artists, despite having been recording under that moniker for a few years. They received national attention, including in several notable pieces in "The New York Times", the "Los Angeles Times", "Time" magazine, "Rolling Stone", "Blender", and "Spin", many of which proclaimed Conor Oberst to be a significant new artist. The album was a commercial success and has sold over 250,000 copies, a breakthrough for the label and for all of the band's peers at that time. Oberst stated that, before making this record, both he and Mike Mogis had an idea for a "sort of grandiose sound" that neither could really put into words. This was also the first album made after Oberst's break to play with Desaparecidos.