Slightly Stoopid, Karl Denson, Marlon Asher

[THE SUBLIME AND THE RIDICULOUS] To be sure, the rise of Slightly Stoopid required no small measure of dumb luck. Even in 1995, high-school stoners throwing together enough tunes to fill an opening gig out of town wouldn\'t expect to sign record contracts just afterward. For reasons yet unknown, Bradley Nowell insistently championed the group from the beginning, delivered a ready-made fan base, released the band\'s albums through his own label and brought SoCal ska punk to national attention through an expertly timed overdose. Much as the Ocean Beach troop\'s lyrical inanities garner deserved scorn for a numbing positivity, what if they are just content operating at a near infantile level? Similarly, after the band\'s seventh full-length Top of the World debuted within the Billboard Top 20, appalled critics pointed to the cavalcade of appearances by \'90s frat-house faves (G. Love, the singer for Fishbone, and MC for Jurassic 5) and further diffusion of focus (reggae, thrash, blues, psychedelia, hip-hop, roots—every idiom to smoke weed by) as an especially artless bro-stalgia pandering. But, though the members clearly dislike music and perhaps always did, they do seem to still enjoy parties.