G. Love & Special Sauce have always been a bit of a paradox. They're a blues band, but they're also a rap group. They're white boys who revived an old black blues record label called Okeh. Their songs tend to alternate in subject matter between two utterly different themes: equality and social responsibility on one hand, and the more traditional blues and rap topics of sex, partying and romance on the other.
At least, that was a pretty accurate description of the band's first two albums. But on their next two releases, 1997's "Yeah, It's That Easy" and 1999's "Philadelphonic," you'd have to add another item to the list of dichotomies: down-home roots vs. commercialization.
On the best tracks from those albums, notably "Philadelphonic"'s acoustic, sweet-and-dirty closer "Gimme Some Lovin'," G. and the boys kept it simple, returning to the raw, unrefined, soulful essence of their 1994 self-titled debut, the album that produced their only hit single thus far, "Baby's Got Sauce." But on other tracks, on which the band alternately sounded like they were trying to emulate Boyz II Men and Will Smith, you had to wonder who the band was making the music for: themselves and their fans, or radio executives.
On their latest release, "Electric Mile" (Okeh/Epic), the band's multiple-personality disorder continues -- although it sounds like they may have started to get the problem under control.
Most of the time, listening to "Electric Mile" is great. Like all G. Love's best material, you immediately love or hate it. It's the kind of thing you listen to on a long road trip, or while relaxing in the late-afternoon sun with a few cold ones. If you want music to do calculus to or play in the background while you browse the J. Crew catalog and sip a latte, you've got the wrong band. (Such activities are just antithetical to the whole spirit of G. Love, bro.)
On tracks like "Night of the Living Dead" (which, perhaps not coincidentally, has a very Grateful Dead feel to it), mellow, trippy rhythms and simple lyrics create the requisite down-home feel. On "Hopeless Case," and "Free at Last" (which would have made a great album closer), great, bluesy hooks in the chorus and dreamy, falsetto bridges will make you nod your head with the flow, especially when the Doors-y organs come in. And "Sara's Song" has elements of old-style country music and a strong Dylanesque element, between its harmonica solos, twangy guitar and half-sung, half-spoken vocal delivery.
Lyrically, the strongest cut is "Parasite," a mostly rapped song about those creatures who leach off of others; politicians, critics and lawyers seem to be the main targets. The opening lines are a standout: "Horses getting wiser with age / They're in a rage / 'Cause they realized they've been underpaid."
But for some reason, G. Love & Special Sauce have decided to place the strongest tracks in the middle and end of the album. The two openers, "Unified" and "Praise Up" are both upbeat, slickly produced jams that are not bad, musically speaking. But lyrically, the boys get mired in the same kinds of we-care-a-lot, pseudo-spiritual, white-Rasta-wannabe B.S. that has gotten into them into trouble on their last two albums.
"Now come on, everyone in this place come together / Wouldn't it be nice if we could all live together / Finding peace in unity," G. raps in "Unified." You know he has to understand how nave and cliched that sounds, but he just doesn't seem to care.
Similarly, on "Praise Up," we are admonished to "Praise up, all you people living in your fantasy / Praise up, all you people trapped in mental captivity / Gonna free your mind." Well, isn't that special?
Such lyrical caveats aside, "Electric Mile" is a fine album, full of soulful jams. It's rap that even rap-haters like me can enjoy, since it's so skillfully infused with dirty blues and pop hooks. "Electric Mile" is the sound of a band forging on with more of the unique genre that it more or less single-handedly created.
