When its second album came out, Sugar Ray consisted of five key players; Mark McGrath (lead singer), Rodney Sheppard (guitarist), Stan Frazier (drummer), Murphy Karges (bassist) and D.J. Homicide (DJ). Only McGrath and Sheppard are still in the band today. Sugar Ray is an alternative rock, pop rock and funk metal band that started in 1986. The band has had many band members including Al Keith (vocalist and guitarist), twins Justin (bassist) and Jesse (drummer) Bovina, Australian Serg Dimitrijevic (guitarist), D.J. Homicide, Stan Frazier and Murphy Karges.

Sugar Ray didn’t live up to the hype for me. The band screamed and shouted its way through its second album Floored (1997) with lyrics like, “you pull my head back/ watch me bleed” on the track “Breathe.” This album consists of non-stop shouting with wailing electric guitars and smashing drums. All of the songs on this album sounded the same besides the hit song, “Fly.” This song was the best part of the entire album. Even the band thought so; the song appears twice on the album. The first version played on track 4 featured the reggae artist Super Cat. The second version on track 13 was the regular song without the reggae feel. Both of the songs were equally great, but Super Cat just added something extra that Sugar Ray did not have.

Sugar Ray did nothing but scream and shout and I found it to be extremely annoying that I was counting down the seconds until the album would be over. In the first song of the album “RPM,” you can hear a car revving its engine, which to me is not music, but just noise. Going into the last track, I was expecting another loud and obnoxious rock song, but the album ended with a different version of “Fly.” This ended the album in a great way. I liked how the band spaced out the two versions of the song instead of clumping them together.

After listening to the first three songs, “RPM,” “Breathe” and “Anyone,” I was not feeling the style of the album. Then Super Cat hit me with his reggae sound. I would like to delve into the nine albums that the Jamaican born artist created.

Though I fell in love with “Fly” the second it came on, Sugar Ray could not even get off the ground, let alone fly with this album.