The Grandaddy were a quintet from Modesto, south of San Francisco, not too far from the city of the Pavement, whose "lo-fi" approach they imitated but with a much more melodic touch. Formed by guitarist and singer Jason Lytle in 1992, they debuted with a self-produced album of which only 200 copies were pressed, Complex Party Come Along Theories (1994), recorded by a three-piece lineup (Kevin Garcia on bass and Aaron Burtch on drums).

The band then recruited keyboardist Tim Dryden and guitarist Jim Fairchild, and they released the EPs Machines Are Not She (1995) and A Pretty Mess By This One Band (1997), later collected on The Broken Down Comforter Collection (V2, 1999).

Under The Western Freeway (Will, 1997) is the album that revealed them. The songs forge a curious kind of domestic story and unpretentious pop. The singles (Summer Here Kids, the masterpiece, Laughing Stock, AM 180, Everything Beautiful is Faraway) are catchy without being banal, but sometimes (Why Took Your Advice) the band slips into the saccharine melodicism of XTC. The simplicity of the lyrics is reflected only partly in the arrangements: the reference genre is the barest country ballad, but the Grandaddy fill it with subtle and brief electronic and guitar noises.

Signal To Snow Ratio (1999)

With the socio/sci-fi concept album The Sophtware Slump (V2, 2000) and its retro` electronic arrangements, Grandaddy's quirky pop a` la Sparklehorse reached a new level of sophistication. Lead-off nine-minute track He's Simple blends strumming folkish guitars a` la They Might Be Giants, King Crimson-ian mellotron and David Bowie-esque pensive hymn-like melodies. Basically, Grandaddy transitioned from a power-pop band to a new wave ensemble.
The oblique harmonies of Mercury Rev and Flaming Lips fuel naive ditties such as Hewlett's Daughter, The Crystal Lake, Miner at the Dial-A-View but augmented with the pomp and the gloss of 1970s techno-rock (Alan Parson, ELO). The rest straddles the line between folk, glam-rock and power-pop, with occasional strokes of genius (Jed's Other Poem).

Concrete Dunes (Lakeshore, 2002) is a collection of rarities.

Shunning the experimental side (and the angst) of the previous album, Sumday (V2, 2003) delivers accomplished and unprententious country-pop, but not much more. Thus the echoes of Electric Light Orchestra and Alan Parsons Project are even stronger in the poppier songs. Particularly catchy are Now It's On, The Go in the Go-For-It, Yeah Is What We Had. The atmosphere of the previous album still permeated El Caminos In The West and Saddest Vacant Lot in All the World, but the serious moments are rather encapsulated in the album's centerpiece, O.K. With My Decay, which is also the longest track on the album. This album adds little to Grandaddy's canon, and actually introduces a worrying element: it is always dangerous when musicians begin to think that they can write great lyrics (very few can), and Lytle may be entering that stage.

The seven-song EP Excerpts From The Diary Of Todd Zilla (Devil In The Woods, 2005) contains Cinderland and Florida.

Just Like The Family Cat (2006) is a concept album of sorts, devoted to a metaphorical journey (literally by a cat) that mirrors Lytle's existential journey. The songs are mature and competent, although they rarely (Summer It's Gone, Rear View Mirror) attain true greatness.

After the breakup of Grandaddy, Jason Lytle debuted solo with Yours Truly The Commuter (Anti, 2009), an honest album that sounded a bit outdated although, as usual, impeccably designed and performed (Yours Truly The Commuter, Ghost of My Old Dog).

Grandaddy returned with Last Place (2017), yet another break-up album of rock music, that contains the singles Way We Won't, A Lost Machine and Evermore, and then with The Sophtware Slump (2020), In a Trance and Wandering Around (2021) and Blu Wav (2024).