Album: The Sophtware Slump
Artist: Grandaddy
Born: Modesto, California
Released: May 2000
Genre: Space Rock
Like Radiohead's OK Computer, The Sophtware Slump gave voice to the anxiety that many people were feeling at the pace of technological change. Some of those fears were ridiculous, for example the paranoia that surrounded the Y2K bug, but others – like worries about the environmental impact of an increasing number of broken appliances being dumped in landfill – were understandable. This tension between past and future was reflected in Grandaddy's sound, which mixes country with electronic music and attempts to mesh a rural ethic with an urban one. Jason Lytle's voice has the mournful quality of Neil Young, while the bleepy electronica and spacey psychedelia give the record a contemporary feel, though more lo-fi than the dreamy, orchestrated pop of Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips. Grandaddy's run of three albums from Under The Western Freeway (1997) to Sumday (2003) via The Sophtware Slump is one of the musical highlights of the era, and the band don't get enough credit for their original sound. The song that first turned me onto their charms was The Crystal Lake, a single released at the same time as the album and which became a UK Top 40 hit. In its story of a young man pining to leave a one-horse town for the big city, only to find disappointment, it's a country song as old as the hills ("Should never have left the crystal lake / for areas where trees are fake"). This sad sense of dislocation permeates the record.
Opening track He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's The Pilot is an 8-minute mini-suite of three songs that operate as a whole, with the first sounding like a homage to the Rolling Stones (2000 Man) and David Bowie (Space Oddity). Elliott Smith would apparently help the band perform the song live while they were touring together, no doubt enhancing its melancholy feel. The sadness is best distilled in the character of Jed The Humanoid, a robot that gets drunk in the park and writes poetry. What Grandaddy seem to be getting at is that for all the wide-eyed optimism of how the future might have looked to pop musicians (and others) in the Sixties, the reality of the year 2000 was quite different; a sense that technological advance has left us alienated rather than empowered. Hewlett's Daughter and The Crystal Lake both have a twinkly keyboard sound at odds with the dispiriting themes, but the sadness gets heavier on the second half of the album, starting with Underneath The Weeping Willow. Listening to Jed's Other Poem (Beautiful Ground), it's clear Lytle's lyrics are not just social commentary, but also deeply personal, specifically his struggles with alcoholism. As well as referencing Beck, the song is full of regret ("You said I'd wake up / dead drunk, alone in the park / I called you a liar / but how right you were"). Miner at the Dial-a-View is another highlight on the record, as Lytle imagines life from the perspective of a future miner who's left Earth to tap the resources of another planet; using Dial-a-View to connect with people back home, he finds there's little to return to. So You'll Aim Toward The Sky closes the album on a note of psychedelic euphoria, but the undertow of sadness remains.
Like Radiohead's OK Computer, The Sophtware Slump gave voice to the anxiety that many people were feeling at the pace of technological change. Some of those fears were ridiculous, for example the paranoia that surrounded the Y2K bug, but others – like worries about the environmental impact of an increasing number of broken appliances being dumped in landfill – were understandable. This tension between past and future was reflected in Grandaddy's sound, which mixes country with electronic music and attempts to mesh a rural ethic with an urban one. Jason Lytle's voice has the mournful quality of Neil Young, while the bleepy electronica and spacey psychedelia give the record a contemporary feel, though more lo-fi than the dreamy, orchestrated pop of Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips. Grandaddy's run of three albums from Under The Western Freeway (1997) to Sumday (2003) via The Sophtware Slump is one of the musical highlights of the era, and the band don't get enough credit for their original sound. The song that first turned me onto their charms was The Crystal Lake, a single released at the same time as the album and which became a UK Top 40 hit. In its story of a young man pining to leave a one-horse town for the big city, only to find disappointment, it's a country song as old as the hills ("Should never have left the crystal lake / for areas where trees are fake"). This sad sense of dislocation permeates the record.
Opening track He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's The Pilot is an 8-minute mini-suite of three songs that operate as a whole, with the first sounding like a homage to the Rolling Stones (2000 Man) and David Bowie (Space Oddity). Elliott Smith would apparently help the band perform the song live while they were touring together, no doubt enhancing its melancholy feel. The sadness is best distilled in the character of Jed The Humanoid, a robot that gets drunk in the park and writes poetry. What Grandaddy seem to be getting at is that for all the wide-eyed optimism of how the future might have looked to pop musicians (and others) in the Sixties, the reality of the year 2000 was quite different; a sense that technological advance has left us alienated rather than empowered. Hewlett's Daughter and The Crystal Lake both have a twinkly keyboard sound at odds with the dispiriting themes, but the sadness gets heavier on the second half of the album, starting with Underneath The Weeping Willow. Listening to Jed's Other Poem (Beautiful Ground), it's clear Lytle's lyrics are not just social commentary, but also deeply personal, specifically his struggles with alcoholism. As well as referencing Beck, the song is full of regret ("You said I'd wake up / dead drunk, alone in the park / I called you a liar / but how right you were"). Miner at the Dial-a-View is another highlight on the record, as Lytle imagines life from the perspective of a future miner who's left Earth to tap the resources of another planet; using Dial-a-View to connect with people back home, he finds there's little to return to. So You'll Aim Toward The Sky closes the album on a note of psychedelic euphoria, but the undertow of sadness remains.
Comments