Originally a one-man project by guitarist Jay Reatard, the group's sound was marked by raw, stripped-down instrumentals and lo-fi recording quality.

In 1997, Goner distributed the Reatards' debut EP, titled Get Real Stupid, which featured four brief tracks with a running time under seven minutes.

Music critic Mark Deming described the album's sound as "teenage angst at its harshest", as well as "simple, but they're memorable, with actual hooks and bellow-along choruses to go with the heavyweight crash of the guitars, drums, and feral vocals".

[4] The Reatards released two more EPs in 1998 and 1999, Get Out of Our Way and Your So Lewd, before distributing the band's second studio album Grown Up, Fucked Up on Empty Records, in November 1999.

Deming notes Grown Up, Fucked Up as a transitional album where "one can hear faint clues of the somewhat more sophisticated music he would later make with Lost Sounds and as a solo artist".