Songoftheday 8/19/21 - Couldn't understand how to work it out, once again as predicted left my broken heart open and you ripped it out...
"Every Morning" - Sugar Ray
from the album 14:59 (1999)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #3 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 27
Today's song of the day comes from the rock band Sugar Ray, who had landed a #1 pop radio hit in the fall of 1997 with their lite-reggae-rock track "Fly". The song wasn't able to place on Billboard magazine's official pop Hot 100 chart because it wasn't released as a retail single, but it's success definitely had a hand in forcing the music industry trade bible to change their rules on that. But after the followup single failed to even make the pop airplay list, it was a big fear that the group would fall into the "one-hit wonder" hole like a lot of rock bands of the 90s. In fact, when they returned two years later with their third album, they deliberately named it 14:59 to allude to their "time left" on the public's awareness. The lead single from the set was "Every Morning", written by the band with producer David Kahne (who also produced "Fly"), and heavily sampled the Latin-rock hit "Suavecito" by Malo, which hit #18 on the Hot 100 in 1972. An even more laid back and breezy track than "Fly" albeit with lyrics about cheating, with the harmonies on the hook from "Suavecito" anchoring the hook, Sugar Ray found the formula to get back on to radio, leaving hard rock firmly behind. And the music video, with its retro roller disco vibe, cemented charismatic lead singer Mark McGrath's stature as a cougar-killer on MTV...
"Every Morning", which was released as a single, but came after the rule change anyway, became Sugar Ray's first official top-40 hit on Billboard's Hot 100, reaching the top three in April of 1999. The song spent six weeks at #1 on their Alternative Rock radio chart, and hit #38 at the harder-edged Mainstream Rock list as well. Proving their strength with the "cougars", it spent ten week on top on Billboard's older-skewing Adult Top-40 format chart, while popping on to the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio list at #27. Internationally, the single took five weeks at #1 in Canada, hit #10 in the UK (their sole top ten hit there), and made the top-40 in Australia (#17), New Zealand (#17), Iceland (#21), and Ireland (#24). The 14:59 album, released in January of that year, crested at #17 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over three million copies. The band and this album will return to the series.
(8/10)
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Here's the band at the Hard Rock Cafe for a televised gig...
Up tomorrow: Motownphilly boys head to the Holy Land.
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