Songoftheday 1/12/21 - All around the world statues crumble for me, who knows how long I've loved you...

 

 

"Fly" - Sugar Ray featuring Super Cat

from the album Floored (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: ineligible to chart

Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #1 (six weeks)

Weeks in the Airplay Top-40: 50

 

Today's song of the day comes from the rock band Sugar Ray, who originally came together in Southern California in the late 1980s. Signed to Atlantic Records, the group started out as a nu-metal act, with hard rock mixed with DJ scratching that was starting to gain fans in the state.Their debut album Lemonade and Brownies came out in 1995, and while radio gave it a pass, it got attention with local rock fans, and even slipped onto the Swedish albums chart at #48 (where metal ruled at the time). They returned in 1997 with their sophomore effort, Floored, and while most of the album was geared in that same direction, there was one track that sounded like a totally different band altogether. "Fly", written by the band - lead singer Mark McGrath, DJ Craig "Homicide" Bullock, drummer Stan Frazier, bass player Murphy Karges, guitarist Rodney Sheppard along with British writer Alan Shacklock, featured Jamaican dancehall "toaster" Super Cat (William Maragh), and lilted on a rock-reggae vibe that Sublime had shown so successful. At the time, Super Cat was a minor success in the field, placing four singles in the lower half of Billboard magazine's R&B chart between 1992 and 1995, with the last, "GirlsTown", reaching #59 there and popping on to the pop Hot 100 chart at #99. His presence does give a bit of authenticity to the vibe of the beat. Produced by David Kahne, the track, which spins circular lyrics about mortality and his mother, was light and radio-friendly enough to bowl over mainstream and rock radio audiences...

 

 

Sugar Ray's "pulling an Extreme" (sneaking a lite-pop track on a hard rock album) paid off, and while the song wasn't able to place on Billboard's official pop Hot 100 chart since it wasn't released as a commercially-available single, it got enough radio love to top the airplay component of the chart for six weeks starting in October of 1997, spending close to a year in the top-40. The track also went to #1 on Billboard's Alternative Rock radio chart for two months (eight weeks), and slipped on to their Mainstream Rock list at #29. It even made the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format tally, spending a week at #2. Internationally, the single topped the Canadian Singles chart, and reached the top-40 in Australia at #31 (it was a minor hit in the UK at #58). The Floored album did benefit from the lack of a single, and went to #12, eventually selling over two million copies (it would be one of the big reasons Billboard would change their chart policy a year later).

Since the rest of the album sounded nothing like "Fly", it was hard to get anyone on board with a follow-up. The crashing guitar-driven song "RPM" did spend some time on the Alternative Rock radio chart, rising to #35. As for Super Cat, he only showed up on the charts again in 2003, as a featured artist on R&B vocal group 112's single "Na Na Na", which was his biggest success on the R&B chart at #24, while making it to #75 on the pop Hot 100.

(7/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's the band (without Super Cat) performing on The Late Show with David Letterman to promote the single...

And lastly, the band in concert...

Up tomorrow: Cleveland rappers want widespread education.