The Alton Brown Band You Never Knew Existed

When Alton Brown appeared on "Hot Ones" in 2018 (via YouTube), the fact that his band, Alton Brown Trio, had recently released an album called "Bitter Like Me" only received a few seconds of attention. Before viewers could learn more about this project, the show veered off to Alton Brown grading various food-related hip-hop lyrics.

The album features comedy pop songs that draw from Alton Brown's vast knowledge of food and food television. You can find all the songs such as "Cooking Lesson Lullaby"; "TV Chef," which is a satiric rap on egotistical celebrity chefs, or "Science!" with its insistence on why you should know the science behind food, on Spotify or, of course, on YouTube. "I have no idea how I do it or whether or not I manage to get away with it," he admitted in an email to Eater. "I do greatly enjoy the process and get a huge kick out of performing live. Am I any good? I have no idea, but it sure is fun." Alton Brown's particular contributions appear to be mainly songwriting, the guitar, and vocals. However, he has shared on Instagram that he also practices the saxophone, so maybe that will make an appearance.

Possible reasons that "Hot Ones" devoted so little time to "Bitter Like Me" (via YouTube) are that it was a passion project for Alton Brown and that new "Good Eats" programming was on the horizon. There was simply other stuff to talk about. 

However, at least one Alton Brown fan decided to listen to the album and then write one of its only reviews. It's not a positive one. "Not only does he have a poor singing voice," they write on Rate Your Music, "themselves are full of awkward, unfunny jokes about getting diarrhea from airport shrimp and how grandma's Thanksgiving turkey looks like a 'turd.'" The only songs to gain any approval were "TV Chef" and the title track. The blog Morgan Emilie's Corner of the Internet gave it a more forgiving mention when Emilie included "Pork Chop Blue" on a list of songs they liked, specifically under the category of humor. However, the blogger still admitted that "it's on here more due to the novelty than the quality compared to the other songs of 2018."

That's the issue with passion projects. People might not vibe with them. But when Brown uploaded the music video for "Pop Song," which is a Devo-esque song about popcorn, fans loved it. "This feels like good eats meets Devo and I'm totally here for it," one wrote. So, The Alton Brown Trio is not just for Alton Brown superfans, but specifically for the superfans who share his rather dorky sense of humor.