Floored

Floored is the second studio album by American rock band Sugar Ray, released on June 24, 1997. It includes the hit song "Fly", and another moderately successful single, "RPM". Two versions of "Fly" appear on the album, one of them featuring reggae artist Super Cat. Floored is the first album to feature DJ Homicide as an official member whereas he was a guest musician in the previous album Lemonade and Brownies.

Background and recording
Prior to coming up with the reggae-influenced pop rock single "Fly", the band feared Atlantic Records would drop them due to the underperformance of their 1995 debut Lemonade and Brownies, which only saw some minor success in Europe. Drummer Stan Frazier recalled in 1999 that it was "really depressing", noting that the band came close to being dropped from the label. In 1994, Sugar Ray had signed a two album deal with Atlantic which was worth two million dollars, but the label were considering buying out their contract due to the commercial failure of Lemonade and Brownies in the United States. When the label were on the verge of dropping Sugar Ray, a member of Atlantic's metal department helped them get an appearance on The Howard Stern Show in New York City. They showed up to the studio with a group of women they knew from New York, and were on the program for over an hour, performing a cover of a song called "Psychedelic Bee", which Stern himself had written. The appearance increased their exposure, and Atlantic wanted to build off this momentum. Following the appearance on The Howard Stern Show, they ended up being given a second chance to go to New York for a month, where they would write new material.

Early in the writing process of Floored, singer Mark McGrath pushed for the band to make more scream-oriented metal songs, but the other members preferred melody-driven music. Disagreements over the album's intended sound led to McGrath storming out of a practice session in New York. While McGrath was away, his bandmates started writing what would become "Fly". Frazier reflected, "we were looking for an identity, and we just didn't have it yet. So we're locked in this recording studio, writing all this heavy music, and that’s when the shit hit the fan, because Mark, didn’t like the songs we were writing and just decided, 'I'm out of here'. So he disappeared into the New York night for weeks." Frazier came up with the chorus "I just want to fly" since he was frustrated and wanted to "jump out the window and fly out of New York and go somewhere else." McGrath remembered in 2015 that they had been touring with heavy bands such as Deftones, downset. and Monster Magnet, and said that "Fly" was a song that "kind of came out of nowhere." McGrath adds, "setting up [Floored] we said 'listen, we have a bit of a foothold in the metal world, let’s concentrate on that, make some heavier stuff', but at the same time we were getting better as songwriters." When McGrath first heard Frazier sing parts of "Fly" to him in New York, he strongly disliked it, and almost quit the band over it. McGrath later worked on the song himself, and started liking it more. In a July 1997 interview with MTV, McGrath said that the band immediately knew "Fly" would be a single as soon as they recorded it.

After the release of Lemonade and Brownies, Sugar Ray garnered comparisons in the media to Southern Californian ska punk band Sublime, and Floored would end up being produced by David Kahne, who had previously worked with Sublime. McGrath said in October 1997 that, "I love that band. We got David Kahne to produce our album because of his work on the Sublime album. I don't think if you heard our record you'd think every song is like Sublime's, but I agree there are elements in there. 'Fly' [definitely] took on more reggae overtones as a result of working with Kahne. He produces in a certain way, and he is responsible for the Sublime sound." Prior to recording the album with Kahne in Los Angeles, McGrath said that they still only had pieces of songs written, but claims that they "felt good" about the still-yet unrecorded "Fly". Two versions of "Fly" appear on the album, with the first featuring Jamacian musician Super Cat. The second version appears as the closing track, and excludes Super Cat's parts. It was McGrath's idea to have another artist appear on the song. Kahne had previously produced for Super Cat, and was able to get him on the phone. Within five days, he was recording his parts for the song in Los Angeles.

Bassist Murphy Karges labelled the song "High Anxiety" as a "lab experiment" in 2019. He recalls that it originated from McGrath and Kahne, saying that Kahne "kind of took it under his wing to create this interesting weird song that had all these parts in it." "Breathe" and "Invisible" were two of the more metal-influenced songs on the album, and both were rarely played live, with Karges saying that he considers "Invisible" to be an album filler. He commented, "sometimes you run out of ideas and you need another track to fill out the time, so then you just dump a bunch of random ideas, riffs and changes into a pot, stir it up, then pour it out onto the record. Thus is how 'Invisible' came to be." According to Karges, he and his bandmates later made fun of "Breathe" for being a "bad song". He said, "this would be the song we'd throw under the bus. We'd talk about a hit or something, and then we'd go 'and there's always Breathe'." The song "American Pig" was another of the more metal-influenced tracks, but was played live far more frequently. Karges said that they enjoyed playing it in Europe, because "we were sort of American Pigs ourselves". The album features a cover of the 1981 song "Stand and Deliver", by Adam and the Ants. McGrath said in July 1997 that, "we grew up in Southern California listening to KROQ and Adam and the Ants and all that new wave stuff. The label knew we wanted to do a cover and they gave us all this Parliament-Funkadelic stuff and '70s soul collections and we just thought the Ants were closer to our attitude. It's so weird and glam."

Around the time the record was being made, the band appeared in the Warner Bros. comedy film Fathers' Day, which also featured pop punk band The Muffs. It would end up being released within a month of Floored in 1997. McGrath told Stereogum in 2023 that his band were grateful to be appearing in a major movie, since Sugar Ray were still not very well-known at that point. He added, "they weren’t looking for a big band. They were looking for a band that people kind of knew, but it was a legitimate band, but wasn't huge, because they didn’t want a huge band to take away from the movie."

Musical style
The album has been categorized as funk metal, nu metal and alternative metal. It features elements of heavy metal, funk, new wave, reggae, pop, punk, R&B, ska and hip hop. The AV Club in 2017 labelled it as a "funk-punk-alt-metal-lite-FM-pop mishmash". Regarding their mixture of styles, McGrath said in October 1997, "one thing that makes Sugar Ray relevant is the fact that we have a chameleonlike quality to us in that there's nothing we can't do. Floored is a testament to that." Guitarist Rodney Sheppard claimed in July 1997 that their diversity of styles was in part due to the fact that all members contributed to the writing process, but he noted that Floored had a "more focused" mix of styles than Lemonade and Brownies did.

In their June 1997 review, the Los Angeles Times believed the album derived influence from Korn, Rage Against the Machine and the Vandals. In another article from 1999, the Los Angeles Times characterized this era of Sugar Ray as having a "harder edged punk-funk sound", and claimed it to be derivative of not only Rage Against the Machine but also the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Ron Hart of CMJ New Music Report considered their sound on this album to be "metallic funk" in December 1998, while Spin referred to their sound as punk-funk in November 1997. Geoffrey Hines of The Washington Post similarly noted the album's mixture of funk, punk and metal. In July 1997, he wrote that "Sugar Ray are young enough to have learned a few lessons from such fellow Southern California bands as the pop-punkers Green Day, the funk-rockers Fishbone and the ska-punkers Sublime", adding that the band "borrows ingredients from all three role models and then thickens the sound by playing everything with the cartoonish hyperbole and heavy-metal pummeling of Kiss." Billboard claimed in September 1997 that the song "Fly" was not representative of the rest of the album, saying "while the band has undoubtedly become tied to the track due to its widespread coverage, it is only one facet of Sugar Ray's musical persona." In an August 1997 interview, Murphy Karges said he didn't want people to "flip out and think that there are 16 'Fly's' on this disk." Regarding the new type of fans the band was attracting with "Fly", Karges said "you just hope that there's something else on the record that they can dig." McGrath claimed in 2009 that he considered Floored to be heavier than Lemonade and Brownies, saying that "I think the common misconception with that first record is that it was really hard. Half the songs were some of the mellowest stuff we ever wrote — R&B songs with falsetto vocals." He added that, "it was funny; people would buy the [next] record Floored expecting fifteen 'Fly' and they got the hardest record we ever made."

Due to the massive amounts of strong language in the songs "Cash" and "American Pig", some copies of the album contain the "Parental Advisory" label. It contains the early label that can be peeled off the case. On the clean version of the album, all swear words are blanked out. It is their last album to feature explicit language and their last heavy album before they moved toward a more pop friendly approach.

Touring and promotion
The band toured throughout 1997 and 1998 to support Floored. Sugar Ray performed at the Blockbuster Rockfest festival in Fort Worth, Texas on June 21, 1997, which was televised. The event also featured artists such as Bush, Counting Crows, Jewel and No Doubt. In July, Sugar Ray performed at the 1997 edition of the punk-focused Warped Tour, playing alongside Limp Bizkit, who released their debut Three Dollar Bill, Y'all that same month. The album included a song called "Indigo Flow" which referenced Sugar Ray, as they were friends with the band. Following this, Sugar Ray invited Smash Mouth to join them on a run of shows in the United States. Smash Mouth had also just released their debut album, and the media were comparing them to Sugar Ray, due to being another lighthearted pop-influenced band from Southern California. On September 7, 1997, Sugar Ray again performed alongside Limp Bizkit at the second edition of the KMYZ Edgefest in Tulsa. The lineup that year also included Artificial Joy Club, Helmet, Our Lady Peace, Reel Big Fish and Faith No More (who performed immediately after Sugar Ray). Between October and December 1997, they toured America with 311 and Incubus, who at that point had not yet released their breakthrough single "Drive". Incubus were initially only meant to perform on the first leg of this tour, but the crowd response to them was so great that they stayed for the remainder of it. Other artists that Sugar Ray shared bills with during the Floored touring cycle include The Aquabats, Blink-182, Chumbawamba, Days of the New, Everclear, Green Day, Hed PE, Kiss, L7, The Nixons, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Sarah McLachlan, Snot and Weezer, among others. At one 1997 show at Club 329 in Fullerton, California, the band took to the stage hours late since McGrath was in an altered state. When the audience grew angry towards Sugar Ray, McGrath responded by telling them that "all you guys out there are jealous of me 'cause your girlfriends would rather fuck me than you.'" McGrath eventually fell offstage, leaving bassist Murphy Karges and guitarist Rodney Sheppard to fill in on vocals.

Sugar Ray contributed the song "Rivers" to the Scream 2 soundtrack album, released on November 18, 1997. The song can also be heard in the credits of the film itself, released a month later. It was an ode to Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo and written in the style of a Weezer song.

Commercial response
Floored went to number 12 on the Billboard 200 on August 30, 1997. Within a month of the album's release, "Fly" had become extremely popular. It went on to top the Radio Songs chart (and spending 59 weeks on the chart), the Pop Songs chart, and the Alternative Songs chart. In September 1997, 510,000 copies of Floored were sold. In December 1997, 1,200,000 copies of Floored were sold. In February 1998, Floored was certified 2× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for selling 2,000,000 copies in the United States.

"RPM", the second single from Floored, had a heavier sound similar to the rest of the album, and was far less successful than "Fly". McGrath later recalled that several years prior to making Floored, Rodney Sheppard's girlfriend had gone to see a psychic, and she predicted that the band would "become an overnight sensation with one song and they will fade as quickly as they rise up." McGrath said in 1999 that, "I always remembered that. It sure made us nervous after having only one hit from Floored."

Reception
Floored received generally positive reviews. Robert Christgau gave the album a B− in December 1997, writing, "[Sugar Ray is] the nearest thing to a fresh young rock band the market or the 'underground' has kicked up this year." The Los Angeles Times wrote on June 28, 1997 that "Sugar Ray has a knack for catchy borrowing and for hard-rock crunch colored by pop hooks and a deejay's deft scratch effects. The single 'Fly' is a perfect summer confection that's as irresistible as it is lightweight." AllMusic wrote that "Sugar Ray's second album, Floored, is a noticeable improvement from Lemonade and Brownies. The group's fusion of metal, funk, reggae, and rap is seamless and confident, partially because Sugar Ray now emphasize the groove, not the guitars. The group still has difficulty writing a consistent batch of songs, but its hooks are stronger than ever." The Washington Post state in their July 1997 review that the band "are juvenile, politically incorrect and derivative but nonetheless boast an infectious energy and enthusiasm."

A more mixed review at the time came from the Tampa Bay Times, who called it a "bland alt-metal record" in July 1997. In a September 1997 review of a Sugar Ray concert, Variety wrote that "the quintet's low-brow approach — a mix of metal, hip-hop, rock and reggae, all peppered by spastic singer Mark McGrath's puerile lyrics — aims only to be fun, guilt-free entertainment."

Legacy
Entertainment Weekly's Rebecca Ascher-Walsh wrote in 1999 that the album made Sugar Ray "the 1997 Furbys of the MTV spring-break crowd." That same year, CNN described the song "Fly" as turning Mark McGrath into a "sex symbol". In 2013, Angelica Leichardt of OC Weekly criticized their change in direction following Floored, remarking "perhaps they should have stayed a funk-metal band, which is where their sound originated from, because anything would be better than the junk they put out [afterwards]." Music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine had a more positive view of the band's later change in direction, saying "they not only abandoned funk-metal the second they had a hit with the breezy 'Fly', they ran with their newfound success, turning into the sunny, good-time summertime band that American pop radio desperately needed in the bleak, self-absorbed aftermath of grunge." In 2005, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reflected that "Fly" was "fun, reggae-tinged pop" and added that it "contrasted with the metal feel of the rest of the album." The A.V. Club wrote negatively of the album on its 20th anniversary in 2017. They noted that it was released in the same two week stretch between late June and early July 1997 that also featured albums by artists such as Limp Bizkit and Smash Mouth, and argued that this was the worst two week stretch in music history. In 2015, Kate Beaudoin of Mic.com wrote that 1997 was "the definitive year [for] '90s guilty pleasures", and cited "Fly" as an example in her article, alongside songs such as "Barbie Girl" by Aqua, "MMMBop" by Hanson and "Bitch" by Meredith Brooks.

Personnel

 * Sugar Ray
 * Mark McGrath – lead vocals, rhythm guitar
 * Rodney Sheppard – lead guitar, backing vocals
 * Murphy Karges – bass, backing vocals
 * Stan Frazier – drums, percussion, guitar, programming, backing vocals
 * Craig "DJ Homicide" Bullock – turntables, samples, programming, keyboards, backing vocals


 * Artwork
 * Alison Dyer – photography
 * Donald May & Larry Freemantle – art direction
 * Rob Eberhardt – album artwork for chrome renderings
 * Richard Newton – illustration


 * Additional musicians
 * David Kahne – additional programming, keyboards


 * Production
 * David Kahne – producer, engineer, mixing
 * Stephen Marcussen – mastering
 * Doug Trantow – mixing assistant
 * James Murray – mixing assistant
 * Mark Nixdorf – mixing assistant
 * Mike Rew – mixing assistant
 * John Ewing Jr. – assistant Engineer
 * John Travis – tracking engineer
 * Chip Quigley & Lee Heiman – management