Picking up where their Signal to Snow Ratio EP left off, Grandaddy's wittily named second album The Sophtware Slump upgrades the group's wry, country-tinged rock with electronic flourishes that run through the album like fiber-optic lines.
Arpeggiated keyboards sparkle on "Hewlett's Daughter" and "The Crystal Lake," and wind, birds, and transmissions hover around the songs' peripheries, suggesting a Silicone Valley landscape.
Jason Lytle's frail, poignant vocals provide a bittersweet counterpoint to the chugging guitars and shiny electronics that envelop him like a cockpit or a cubicle on "Chartsengrafs" and "Broken Household Appliance National Forest" and set the tone for melancholy ballads like "He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's the Pilot," "Miner at the Dial-a-View," and "Jed the Humanoid," the story of a forgotten, alcoholic android.
Lost pilots, robots, miners, and programmers try to find their way on The Sophtware Slump, an album that shares a spacy sadness with Sparklehorse's Good Morning Spider and Radiohead's OK Computer.
Though it's a little more self-conscious and not quite as accomplished as either of those albums, it is Grandaddy's most impressive work yet and one of 2000's first worthwhile releases.
| Title/Composers | Performer | Listen | Time | Size | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's the PilotJason Lytle | Grandaddy | Play | 08:52 | 20 MB | 55 MB |
| 2 | Hewlett's DaughterJason Lytle | Grandaddy | Play | 03:06 | 7 MB | 22 MB |
| 3 | Jed the HumanoidJason Lytle | Grandaddy | Play | 04:18 | 9 MB | 24 MB |
| 4 | The Crystal LakeJason Lytle | Grandaddy | Play | 05:00 | 11 MB | 38 MB |
| 5 | ChartsengrafsJason Lytle | Grandaddy | Play | 02:51 | 6 MB | 21 MB |
| 6 | Underneath the Weeping WillowJason Lytle | Grandaddy | Play | 02:40 | 6 MB | 11 MB |
| 7 | Broken Household Appliance National ForestJason Lytle | Grandaddy | Play | 04:34 | 10 MB | 31 MB |
| 8 | Jed's Other Poem (Beautiful Ground)Jason Lytle | Grandaddy | Play | 03:25 | 7 MB | 18 MB |
| 9 | E. Knievel Interlude (The Perils of Keeping It Real)Jason Lytle | Grandaddy | Play | 01:57 | 4 MB | 10 MB |
| 10 | Miner at the Dial-A-ViewJason Lytle | Grandaddy | Play | 05:21 | 12 MB | 36 MB |
| 11 | So You'll Aim Toward the SkyJason Lytle | Grandaddy | Play | 04:45 | 10 MB | 31 MB |
| 46 mins | 107 MB | |||||
| 46 mins | 302 MB | |||||
| Artist | Job | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jim Fairchild | Assistant, Assistant Engineer, Musician |
| 2 | Kevin Garcia | Musician |
| 3 | Grandaddy | Primary Artist |
| 4 | Jason Lytle | Composer, Engineer, Group Member, Mixing, Musician, Producer |
| Quality | Format | Encoding | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | MP3 | 320kps 44.1kHz | MP3 is an audio coding format which uses a form of lossy data compression. The highest bitrate of this format is 320kbps (kbit/s). MP3 Digital audio takes less amount of space (up to 90% reduction in size) and the quality is not as good as the original one. |
| CD Quality | FLAC | 16bit 44.1kHz | FLAC is an audio coding format which uses lossless compression. Digital audio in FLAC format has a smaller size and retains the same quality of the original Compact Disc (CD). |