:: Track Listing

1. Now It's On
2. I'm on Standby
3. The Go in the Go-For-It
4. The Group Who Couldn't Say
5. Lost on Yer Merry Way
6. El Caminos in the West
7. Yeah is What We Had
8. Saddest Vacant Lot in All the World
9. Stray Dog and the Cholocate Snake
10. O.K. With My Decay
11. The Warming Sun
12. The Final Push to the Sum

:: Record Review

Grandaddy

Sumday
(V2; 2003)

Rating: 69%
Combined Rating: 76%


There is a certain type of music that is excruciatingly frustrating. It is the music that I label, perhaps in a facile way, "harmless." The reason for my frustration with said type of music is this: it's unchallenging, and most often the band playing it seems capable of so much more, in so many senses. They could have more emotional impact, they could have more gravity, they could be more daring, they could have better lyrics. The songs are pretty, but they could have been moving.

All of these describe Grandaddy.

Sumday is not a bad record by any means. In fact, for what it attempts, it's a perfectly solid effort. But it attempts so little. Or I should say, it attempts so much less than what these guys seem capable of (or so I hope). So, even objectively, this album is good without being striking, pleasant without touching your endorphin switch. It will be, given enough time, relegated to the bins of CD's that you can ignore without feeling guilty. For the spins that you do run it through, you'll probably be satisfied. They just won't be that many, because there's little here that grabs you. Perhaps you'll just come down sometime listening to Sumday. But if you're looking for an album that deals with the hollowing of our hearts by technology, you're more likely to look for OK Computer.

Speaking of Radiohead, let me explain how far the connection between these two bands goes (since Radiohead is oft-described in the name-drop game when it comes to Grandaddy). With Sophtware Slump Grandaddy did touch on Radiohead themes --doom, gloom, disconnection, pessimism, all in relation to that seeming inevitability (and a fairly over-the-top, melodramatic one, at that) that we would be replaced by machines we made. They were largely experimental, with mixed success, and so the Radiohead name-drop became at least marginally appropriate. With Sumday, the connections to Radiohead are gone, I would almost venture to say entirely. This is as safe a record as anyone could hope to make. Radiohead topped their disconnection opus with a record (ahem, Kid A) that embodied disconnection primarily through sound instead of lyrics (though the irony in the "Optimistic" lyrics is brutal). It was wrought with sonic and lyrical symbolism that was as complex as it was unnerving. It was gutsy and many who didn't understand it hated it, and many who understood it were still skeptical, while many who really understood it and related to it were stunned (myself included). As Oscar Wilde once said, when the critics are in disagreement, the artist is in accord with himself.

Grandaddy, on the other hand, have laid back and made an easy, specifically Grandaddy record that anyone can like, but that I would never love, or really even like very much. The analogy that springs to mind - in order to give you an idea - is the classroom where the genius of the class does such infinitely intense and complex work that the next brightest kid who initially tries to keep up realizes he just doesn't have that genius and all but gives up. This isn't to insinuate competition between the two, only to demonstrate how they stand in relation to one another.

So, specifics.

The lyrical content doesn't take itself too seriously, which is healthy. The kind of brooding pessimism that seems to successfully tempt so many bands is here turned into chuckling, light-hearted observation. In essence, the melodrama is gone. But conversely, the lyrics have gone from at trying to be important and urgent to largely lackadaisical and structured around rhyming. Yes, there's some effort put forth here, but just enough to keep things vaguely interesting. The good:

"In this life, will I ever see you again / In this life, will I ever see me again?"

"Bust the lock off the front door / Once you're outside you won't want to hide any more..."

The bad:

"Lost on yer merry way / 'Cause unrevealed and never known."

"And there's a shitty limousine parked in front of the bar / That never got to drive any movie stars / But the guy in the driver's seat don't care / With his weird cologne and magic hair...It's magic!" (particularly pained wince there)

The fault here lies in part with the band's obsession with rhyming, so that truly idiotic couplets are put together, but more simply the problem is an apparent lack of desire to compose challenging lines. They're either obvious or generalized and lose meaning. Once in a while a clever premise, like on "I'm On Standby" (told from a machine's point of view) creates an interesting lyrical setting, but the execution of these moments isn't inspired enough to really strike you. And finally, the delivery of all of the lyrics is virtually uniform, at a (perhaps intentional) constant volume and intensity. Even if it is intentional, it wouldn't forgive the blandness that is laid atop the occasional potent lyric. Jason Lytle, the lead man, sounds like the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne, but where Coyne put sincere emotion into his innocent, child-like voice so that it quavers with that wonderful vulnerability, Lytle's voice sounds like it's coming from an indifferent, mildly stoned Coyne who once in a while heaves a sad word out. It's as smooth as plain yogurt, and just as unexciting.

Apart from lyrics, let me begin by saying that the first half of the CD goes at just about the same tempo and energy all the way through. Mid-tempo, lush, guitar-driven pop rock, nearly all in a major key and all sounding cautiously upbeat the entire way through, with some heaven-sent variation in the last half. The few minor keys that do show up are relatively overwhelmed by the steady return to majors and pastoral guitar tones. It seems that having once been negative, Grandaddy are now afraid to be dark. On songs like "Saddest Vacant Lot in All the World," a song that could have been subtle and dark but instead opts for simple sadness, Grandaddy evade a potentially deeper complexity in their album. It's so straightforward that it can be uninteresting. Mid-tempo rock needs some extra jolt to make it flavorful. . . otherwise it sounds dangerously derivative. This album doesn't really sound derivative --but then again, if it sounds like Grandaddy, then it's a tame beast we're dealing with here.

This record is saved (barely) by its simple, pretty melodies (even if they can be innocuous). The guitars are not really moving, but are played with an innocence that makes their sameness forgivable. "The Group Who Couldn't Say," while it could do with out it's doo doo doo's, has excellent lyrics, and the effects and lulls and go's are solid --the synths in the last half of the song are superb, laid in with the breathy, simple voice of Lytle. And the melancholic melody of "Lost On Yer Merry Way" overcomes its tepid lyrics and lethargic tempo well enough to make it an enjoyable listen despite its potentially tedious length of 6 minutes and 14 seconds. The album is backloaded with a few solid songs, again, all at almost-slowcore pace but supporting themselves on the only muscles they have to stand with: the pretty songwriting.

Yet, in the end, the pleasant --even occasional sterling --melodies of this album just can't counterbalance its shortcomings, the biggest of which are its general sameness, slow tempos, and utter refusal to challenge the listener at all. And kids, this ain't an album about subtlety, so it's impossible to defend it on those grounds. These songs don't have nuances. And perhaps that's the final problem that damns Sumday to that bin of albums that are just "pretty good."

My brother said, when I was playing Sumday in our basement, "This sucks, dude." I don't trust him a bit when it comes to music, but I was curious to know why he detested it. He said, simply, "It's boring." I found myself having some difficulty arguing that point down. Amir Nezar :: 22 July 2003 |