Lemonade and Brownies is the debut studio album by the American rock band Sugar Ray, released on April 4, 1995, by Atlantic Records.

[10] One of the reasons Morris wanted to sign Shrinxy Dinx was since he saw star potential in singer Mark McGrath, who he referred to as "the kid" during a meeting with Heiman and Quigley.

Sugar Ray asked DJ Lethal to work on their album as they were a fan of the House of Pain song "Jump Around".

"[17] The album title originated after recording was finished, and was inspired by an ad in a pornographic magazine, which featured a near-naked woman and the slogan "try our lemonade and brownies".

[18] The band found the magazine after moving into a house in the Los Angeles suburb of Hancock Park, which they shared during the making of this album and Floored.

[22] He said in October 1997 that the cover art helped the album gain more exposure, saying "I can't tell you how many program directors have told me they played our record because of that photo.

"[31] In her 2000 Sugar Ray biography book, author Anna Louise Golden states that people at the time considered the band's sound to be "putting the funk into music that was perilously close to metal", adding that "at that time, more than anything, people considered them to be heavily under the influence of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

[16] "Danzig Needs a Hug", "Hold Your Eyes" and "Scuzzboots" were not done in the style of short interludes, instead running the same length of time as the rock songs.

[38] The album opener "Snug Harbor" uses a jazz loop that DJ Lethal had found, and the band came up with the lyric "hey, get up, have some fun tonight", which is repeated throughout the track.

It is primarily built around a "big, dumb riff" which the band liked, and was regularly played live on the tour for Lemonade and Brownies.

He wanted them to use a bassline similar to "Walk on the Wildside" by Lou Reed, and the band started developing the rest of the song from there.

Karges had previously toured with Circle Jerks in 1990, when he was temporarily part of Los Angeles punk band The Weirdos.

[46] Hillis later suffered a double stroke in early 2000, and that year the band did a benefit concert to help him pay for his six-figure medical bills.

[45] The music video for "Mean Machine" was featured in a 1995 Beavis and Butt-Head episode titled "Bang the Drum Slowly Dumbass".

[52][53] Before they performed "Iron Mic" on the program, McGrath showed host Sara Cox how he was able to set parts of his pubic hair on fire.

[19] In 2016, former manager Lee Heiman said the band became tighter musicians during the tour for Lemonade and Brownies, and were having a fun time playing at small clubs, adding that "everything was going according to plan, yet the album sales were not happening.

In September 1997, three months after Floored was released, Lemonade and Brownies had only sold 48,000 copies according to SoundScan, which was then considered a very low number for a band on a major label.

AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that the album is "a competent set of alternative funk/metal", but noted that "nothing on Lemonade & Brownies is particularly distinctive.

"[2] In June 1995, Mike Boehm of the Los Angeles Times labelled it "juvenile", and cited it as having "the dumb-fun appeal that's the essence of frat rock."

Boehm adds "with the album’s cheesecake artwork and infantile, toilet-humor title, it’s clear Sugar Ray is factoring its appeal down to lowest denominators with this debut CD.

"[5] Kirk Miller of The Michigan Daily wrote in September 1995 that "Sugar Ray is the same feeling as having the munchies at 3 a.m. and running out to Denny's."

[56] In August 1995, CMJ New Music Monthly wrote that the album "jumps hyperactively between rap, hardcore, arena rock and funk with a lot more skill and strength than you might expect (although, like so many white boys, they sound like they're trying a bit too hard to be funk-ay)".

The publication further stated that, "The Beastie Boys (there's even a "Cookie Puss"-style prank phone call), Bad Brains and Van Halen loom large here.

"[26] In April 1995, David Beran of the Gavin Report similarly wrote, "dangling their feet in the streams of hard rock and funk, Sugar Ray manage to do what the Beasties and Chilis have done.

"[57] In his August 1995 review, Scott Iwasaki of the Deseret News described Sugar Ray as a "hardcore hip-metal act resembling Beastie Boys and Red Hot Chili Peppers", and said that the album has "a couple of innovative surprises".

He described the opening track "Snug Harbor" as being "a little acid jazz" and said that "'Hold Your Eyes' sounds so urban you'd think Dr. Dre played a hand in the mix.

"[27] New Zealand publication Rip It Up wrote in their November 1995 review that the album has "excursions into [various] musical genres, combined with a sense of humor and quirkiness."

"[28] David Jenison of In Music We Trust claimed in 1999 that with Lemonade and Brownies, "Sugar Ray only had three things going for them: 1) a good looking singer, 2) punk rock influences, and 3) being from Orange County, home to bands like No Doubt and the Offspring.

[18] In 2021, Louder Sound had a positive view of the album compared to their later pop-oriented material, writing that "[Lemonade and Brownies] and its 1997 follow-up Floored are actually worth investing a little bit of your time to", adding that "we get why they 'sold out', but damn, we could have done with more of this before they went for the big pay day.

She called Lemonade and Brownies a "messy funk-punk effort", and noted that, "to many folks, Sugar Ray was [just] another blonde-frosted late-'90s nothing of a band whose songs showed up in sitcoms and romcoms.