Drake said that his first album, "What Day is It?" (1994) was influenced by "the climate, the deserts, the dusty hills around L.A.", and that his next one, "Little Black Train" (1998), largely an instrumental album, was "dirtier and messier" than the first. "Medallion Animal Carpet" (1999) consisted of different musical ideas strung together around a "medley of noisy country-ish songs", and "The Skull Mailbox and Other Horrors" (2001), recorded in a barn, was a collection of little "horror songs" played on a nylon stringed classical guitar and a "cheap little organ".