G. Love and Special Sauce

It’s cool that somebody tried this sound but I dont like the execution too much

This band is like Dollar Store Beck. This is the kind of blues rock pseudo hip hop music that could be found on every university radio station ever in the 90's/00's. That's not to say that it is necessarily bad, just mediocre at best. Do I need to listen to this album before I croak.... No. Has this sound been done hundreds of times before by more qualified acts.... Yes. Am I angry that I listened to this... Not necessarily, but it doesn't belong on this list, that's for sure

G. Love should have stopped the record around the 40 minute mark.... The last three songs on the record aren't great, but the rest of the album isn't terrible.

Favourite songs: Cold Beverage, Garbage Man, Fatman, Blues Music, This Ain't Living, Eyes Have Miles, Shooting Hoops, Baby's Got Sauce

Least favourite songs: Some Peoples Like That, Town to Town, I Love You

4/5

This is bad and I couldn't finish it. 1/5

Here is the self-titled debut album for G. Love and Special Sauce, a group known for its laid-back fusion of blues, hip-hop, rock, and soul. These guys seemed like they achieved their dream of working the Massachusetts clubs and bars to the point where they got a record deal and found success. Decades later though, I can't help but feel like this still has the problems typical with a debut.

For sure, I had fun with a fair amount of these tracks, but my enjoyment was primarily from track five "Baby's Got Sauce" through track eleven "Shooting Hoops" when the tempo is faster and frontman Garrett Dutton aka G. Love has to rap at the same speed. It's not that these guys don't play well on their instruments, but the lyrical content is more in focus when the compositions are slow and loose.

This brings me to the feeling that G. Love thinks he's cooler and smarter than how he raps, whether it's the name check of notable blues musicians on "Blues Music", the blasé attempts at wooing a girl on "Garbage Man", or the basic observations made on "Some Peoples Like That". These lyrics read more like first drafts. Even when it's more energetic, they can bring someone else in like Jasper in the second verse of "This Ain't Living" and the guy will have a more commanding flow than G. Love does on his own song.

Also throughout my listen to this album, I couldn't help but be reminded of another laid-back 90s rap-rock group with a similar cadence - Sublime. The fact that these guys made it onto the list and not Sublime is a strikingly odd choice, given the latter group's lasting longevity in popular culture stemming from their more vibrant incorporations of ska and reggae. I could tune to an FM classic rock radio station and have a better chance of hearing "Santeria", "Wrong Way" or "What I Got" than I would for "Baby's Got Sauce" or "Cold Beverage" even if they're good singles.

Again, this is a debut album from a group that showed potential, and I'm sure they've refined their rap/blues fusion over the following decades. But as far as a "list of albums to listen to before you die" goes, I would have chosen a different one.

First half was actually a pretty fun spin on blues and rap. I liked a lot of the songs.. But the album felt frontloaded and lost steam (and my interest) in the end.

I was really enjoying the first song until he opened his mouth

Terrible vocals. The songs quickly went south - presumably as the band got higher/drunker while recording

It ended up becoming a jam session and this guy mumbling his improv

Would have been much better as an instrumental album

2 ⭐️

January 9th, 2024

G. Love walked so G Eazy could walk

HL: "Blues Music", "This Ain't Living", "Town to Town"

Normaal haat ik die luie zang. En helemaal verantwoorden voor mijzelf, waarom ik het nu wel fijn vind, lukt me nu niet. In elk geval voelt het echt en past de zang bij de relaxtere muziek. Het heeft iets van de Fun Lovin' Criminals, maar dan met wat minder power-uitschieters. Prima plaatje.

I have never really paid much attention to this band, despite having heard of them. I really liked the three piece / trio arrangement in the band, and I REALLY enjoyed listening to the bassist and drummer who are obviously jazz musicians play a unique take on... whatever you call this. I was surprised I liked this as much as I did. I'll for sure add this album and more from the band to my own collection

I didn’t know Stoned College Roommates of America got to lobby for spots on this list

This album is not for me, it sounded very samey and long which made me bored of it.

Never heard of this band before, but trying to give them a fair shot. I can see why they were popular on college radio at the time, and they have a couple decent songs (Blues Music and Cold Beverage), but overall they are a bit cringe. Less interesting than what Beck was doing around the same time, and not as fun as the Fun Lovin' Criminals. Musically, the rhythm section is quite good, but the singer just sounds like a stoned guy at a house party trying to imitate the Beastie Boys. They actually remind me a bit of Gomez, who did a much better take on this style later in the 90s. Hope their debut is in this list somewhere.

Each track I was hoping for an instrumental. Each time they ruined it by signing. The music is enjoyable blues-jazz. The vocals had me twitching for the skip button.

I got way more into this the further it went on. You see a bunch of highly upvoted 1 star reviews calling it cringe, and then you hear those kind of drawling vocals coming in, and you do start to wonder. I thought I'd be more annoyed by them, but actually I'm not that much. After a while I kind of got into the vibe of what he was doing.

I like the laid back, casual flow of this album with those nice bass lines running through it. I feel like it'd be cool to hate on this kind of thing, but if you actually just go with it then you can have a pretty decent time.

3.5 rounded down.

I enjoyed this more than I did back in the 90's

Not a single song I felt like going back to and it's staying that way

Time machine

Very 90s, very white - easy listen in the main but I did cringe inside

Stick it in the fridge.

At first I was annoyed this was the album I had for the day my twins were born because it was something I had never heard of and sampling it for a bit made it sound like something I would hate. But then I actually found two seconds out of my first week with the babies and relax to this album. It was actually really weird in the best way. Weird as in unique. I actually appreciated the weird inflections of some of the words being sung (said? Rapped?). I ended up enjoying every song on this album.