Grandaddy Announce New Piano Rework for the 20th Anniversary of The Sophtware Slump for November 2020 Release

California indie rock band, Grandaddy has announced a 20th Anniversary wooden rework of their second album The Sophtware Slump on Los Angeles-based Dangerbird Records. Regarding the album’s release, the band tweeted:

One night in June of 1999, we were sitting in Jason’s tiny house in Modesto, California when he mentioned that he could sit down at the piano and play the whole of what would be The Sophtware Slump front to back. This meant he was (finally!) ready to begin recording. The piano was in the kitchen then so we sat and he started to play. Distracted by beer and conversation, we didn’t make it all the way through.

Early last year, as we discussed if we should commemorate the 20th Anniversary. I recalled the memory and wondered what the album would have sounded like before all that wonderful production, before one note had been committed to tape.

According to Pitchfork, Grandaddy guitarist Jim Fairchild stated, “With the scope of what Grandaddy has done and what Jason has done in his career, I thought there was room to pay greater attention to my favorite view of him, which is as a songwriter.”

According to the band’s tweet, the album is expected to be released digitally on Nov. 20 “as part of a four-piece vinyl box set of the original album and most of the B-sides and odds and ends from that era, many appearing on vinyl for the first time here. And a standalone physical release to follow in early 2021.”

The album’s title is a paronomasia of sophomore slump, a term used when a musician’s second album does not match the success of the first. Regarding the original album Mike Powell of Pitchfork writes, “If Radiohead captured a feeling of pre-millenial tension, The Sophtware Slump captured the feeling of disappointment that came afterward — the feeling that life was going to be more or less the same as it had been, only now we’d have to live with the fact that we once thought it’d be so different: the feeling of January 2, 2000.”

In recent news, Canadian hardcore punk band PUP released a punk cover of Grandaddy’s classic 1997 track “A.M. 180.”

Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat

Alex Limbert: Alex was born in Florida and spent his childhood in New Jersey. He lived in Japan in the ‘90s and has been living in Los Angeles since the millennium. He started playing guitar at the age of eight, studied music theory throughout high school, made an album and went on tour at the age of eighteen. He graduated from Rutgers University with a Bachelor of Science in Certified Public Accounting, is a CPA, has a small accounting firm and has been a financial controller for over ten years. In 2017, he decided to continue his music career but realized the technology had changed since he was younger. He started going to school online in the evenings to learn music technology and earned a certificate in electronic music proficiency. He is interested in writing about music and is currently taking classes in music appreciation and journalism. In addition to writing for mxdwn, he plans to continue producing music and to work in music business management. He can be reached at aplimbert@yunizen.com.
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