Songoftheday 10/14/22 -All the things that I used to say all the words that got in the way, all the things that I used to know have gone out the window...

 

 

"When It's Over" - Sugar Ray

from the album Sugar Ray (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #13 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 18

 

Today's song comes from the band Sugar Ray, who went from being a funk-metal outfit at the start to being pure pop confection by the time of their third album 14:59, which spun off three big hits in America with "Every Morning", "Someday", and "Falls Apart (Run Away)".  In the summer of 2001 Mark McGrath, Rodney Sheppard, Murphy Karges, Stan Frazier, and Craig "DJ Homicide" Bullock returned with their self-titled fourth release. The lead single from the set was "When It's Over", written by the band with producer David Kahne. In the song McGrath is still pining for his lover who has broken up with them time and time again. The lyrics are simple and to the point - he misses her, and everything reminds him off her, and he wants her back. Nothing else, no nuance. The music video is much more entertaining, with the band contemplating their ideal video ranging from punk to new wave to stripper funk to a freaky karate duel with Kareem Abdul Jabbar...

"When It's Over" became Sugar Ray's fourth, and final, top-40 hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in September of 2001. On the radio, the song went to #7 on the Mainstream Top-40 chart, spent five weeks at #2 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format, #28 on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") list, and #16 on Triple-A (Adult Album Alternative) Rock stations. Internationally, the single made the top-40 in the United Kingdom (#32) and Australia (#34). The Sugar Ray album, released in June of that year, was their first and only top ten hit on the Billboard 200 sales tally, though selling just over a half million copies a fraction of what their last two records did.

The band's follow-up single, "Answer The Phone", took a week at #39 on the Mainstream Top-40 radio chart, and got to #33 on the Adult Top-40 list, but only "bubbled under" the big Hot 100 at #112.

Sugar Ray came back in 2003 with what would be their fifth and final album on Atlantic Records, In The Pursuit Of Leisure, which peaked at #29 on the Billboard 200. A more diverse and earnest effort, its first single "Mr. Bartender (It's So Easy)" cribbed the guitar hook from Sweet's 70s glam-rock anthem "Love Is Like Oxygen". While it slipped on to the Adult Top-40 radio chart at #20, it again missed the Hot 100, as did their California-style cover of Joe Jackson's post-punk classic "Is She Really Going Out With Him?", which got to #19 on that format. After a Greatest Hits collection which included a new song, "Shot Of Laughter", that slipped on to the Adult Contemporary radio chart for a week at #40, Atlantic Records and the band parted ways.

McGrath took time away from the band to start hosting the TV entertainment "news" program Extra in 2004. He started to become more known in the 2000s as a "personality" than as a singer. Eventually the five of them reunited for an independently-released album, Music For Cougars, in 2009. Though the set made the top half of the Billboard 200 in its first week at #80, it dropped off the entire list after that, with no tracks from the record making much impact on any radio format. At that point Bullock, then Karges and Frazier, left the group. Frazier notably competed on a TV cooking show in the UK and won, and went on to produce some acts and open his own restaurant. McGrath released a solo EP, Summertime's Coming, in 2015, to little notice. McGrath and Sheppard resurrected the Sugar Ray name with Dean Butterworth and Kristian Attard, touring the "oldies" circuit and releasing their most recent album under the moniker, Little Yachty, in 2019, preceded by the single "Make It Easy". 

(5/10)

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An alternate music video for "When It's Over" was made for The Cartoon Network with the band being animated...

Sugar Ray went on the Howard Stern show to promote the single - Stern was a big fan of them...

They included "When It's Over" on their Live In Australia live acoustic DVD...

and lastly in 2010 for their Sessions At AOL before Bullock left...

I'll have my New Music and New Album Recaps this weekend, then on Monday, an R&B group are looking for festivities.