Are there any fans of the band Grandaddy here? They’re one of my all-time favorite bands, definitely in the top five…I think they’re just ingenious. I have never heard hard-driving rock combined with minimalist synth lines and soft vocals in this way, it’s just a really unique combination of elements that produce some of the best music I’ve ever heard. It’s simulntaneously relaxing and exciting, not something that can be said for most music.
I listened to them very heavily last summer, often on beautiful summer evenings whilst very stoned, and became quite obsessed with analyzing their lyrics and the sound of their music. I have heard them compared to The Postal Service, which is a truly foolish comparison and which is based only on the sound of the lead singer Jason Lytle’s high and soft voice. Instrumentally I hear much more of bands like Built to Spill in their sounds with the heavy crashing distortion - and somehow they found a way to make that crashing “wall of sound” gentle and soothing.
Unfortunately they split up about 2 months ago. This really made me upset because I had wanted desperately to see them. I don’t think they’d be anywhere near as good live as they are in the studio, but I still would want to see them and they seem humble and obscure enough that I might even have gotten a chance to meet them.
Also, it came to my attention that The Nature Anthem (one of their weirder and goofier songs) was used in an Acura commercial, and that now it’s their best-known song in the public eye. This pisses me off, the way that the song that is LEAST representative of their style is their best known song (the same way that Do It Again, Steely Dan’s best known song, is by far the least jazzy and interesting of their songs of that period.) I think the penultimate Grandaddy song is “The Group Who Couldn’t Say” - it completely sums up their style both musically and lyrically.
Is anyone else here into Grandaddy? If not , you ought to hear some of them.