G. Love & Special Sauce, John Fullbright

[BRO ARTS] The self-titled debut from G. Love & Special Sauce may technically have arrived without clear precedent two decades back, but let’s not esteem too highly the original vision behind a supra-casual conglomeration of stoned blues licks, whitewashed hip-hop hackery and barroom rock ’n’ roll. Even as that first album rode the memes of antiquity—a Sassy “cute band alert” here, an MTV Buzz Band nod there—to wend its way toward heavy rotation on the frathouse stereo, one couldn’t help but credit the sudden splintering of alternative radio and post-Clintonian evolution of the nouveau bro searching out newly familiar jams guaranteed never to threaten or challenge or even distract. After an ill-fated go at solo relevance, Love has embraced the nostalgia circuit and currently tours with a rejiggered Special Sauce, at the moment supporting another greatest-hits collection essentially unchanged from the 2002 package. It's just ketchup and mayonnaise, you know.