Floored

Background and early writing sessions Prior to releasing their 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. Drummer Stan Frazier recalled in 1999 that it was "really depressing", noting that the band came close to being dropped from the label. The album had seen some minor success in Europe, but fared very poorly in the United States, where it failed to chart. The band ended up doing seven tours in Europe to support Lemonade and Brownies, but did only a single one in the United States, where they were playing in front of mostly empty clubs. While McGrath was away, his bandmates started writing what would become "Fly". Once McGrath was gone, DJ Homicide decided to put on one of his drum loops and bassist Murphy Karges started noodling on his bass. Guitarist Rodney Sheppard then came up with some "island licks". In 1999, McGrath also noted that when compared to Lemonade and Brownies, there was more pressure on them from the label to be a heavy band. He said, "[on Lemonade and Brownies] we were always open to all sides and experimented an awful lot. That way we had a lot of mellow songs and a lot of noisy, loud songs. But when we wrote and recorded Floored it was difficult. They wanted us to go into a certain direction, so they could promote us easier." 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. He said all he heard was "I just want to fly", and it sounded "ethereal". McGrath described it as "the worst thing I had ever heard". For the verses of "Fly", McGrath wrote lyrics which referred to a deceased mother, even though his mother was still alive. 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. Shortly after the song was released, he incorrectly claimed that the lyrics were inspired from an A&R department meeting, where he saw a fly land on the left nostril of Atlantic Records senior VP Jason Flom. Recording McGrath was a fan of Southern Californian ska punk band Sublime, and Floored would end up being produced by David Kahne, who had previously worked with Sublime. McGrath claims he had only been a casual fan of them, until they released their 1996 self-titled breakthrough. The first demo of "Fly" that Sugar Ray shared with Atlantic was made before Super Cat became involved, and as such was the version Atlantic was used to hearing. In a June 1997 interview, Rodney Sheppard said it was Atlantic who insisted on hearing an early demo of the song, noting that even before Sugar Ray sent out the demo, the band already "knew that we wanted to have a dance hall guy doing Jamaican toasting throughout the single." "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'." "Breathe" featured subtle keyboard parts from Kahne and was one of the songs where DJ Homicide was most prominent. Kahne wanted Floored to have a more layered sound than Lemonade and Brownies, making full use of studio tools and different instruments. The song "American Pig" was another of the more metal-influenced tracks on Floored, but was played live far more frequently than "Breathe" and "Invisible" were. Karges remembered that they enjoyed playing it in Europe, because "we were sort of American Pigs ourselves". Frazier said the lyrics were inspired by the first of their seven tours in Europe for Lemonade and Brownies. For breakfast, the band would eat American-style meals like hash browns, which differed from the breakfasts the natives were eating. He said, "we'd wake up in the morning and go: 'let's have breakfast', and you have all these Europeans having a continental breakfast. And we just realized, we are these big 'American Pigs'." The main guitar riff was inspired from Dave Sabo, of glam metal band Skid Row. Skid Row were labelmates of Sugar Ray, and Sabo heard the early version of "RPM" that Sugar Ray were working on, with Sabo suggesting they make a "sexy riff" for the song. Karges claims that despite playing bass, he was coming up with many of the guitar parts for this album. "Tap, Twist, Snap" and "Speed Home California" were among some of the other songs on Floored that had a fast punk-influenced sound. Karges described the main riff of "Tap, Twist, Snap" as being "very, raw [and] punk rock-ish". The title to "Speed Home California" is a play on "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynyrd Skynyrd, The lyrics were inspired by one night where the band felt isolated while on tour in Germany, since they couldn't speak the language and had to deal with the cold, snowy weather, which contrasted the sunnier weather of Southern California. Earlier in the New York sessions, they had come up with riffs for "Breathe" which were with drop tuned guitars. Karges said "it's an easy way to get a heavy sound. But I remember thinking at the time that it's not going to work like that. We're not going to last being a band that can go out and challenge the Korns and the Deftones. There's no way we can go out and compete with those." At an August 28, 1997 concert in San Francisco, McGrath jokingly said that the song was about how anyone could do what he was doing, since he didn't view himself as being a skilled singer. In her 2000 Sugar Ray biography book, author Anna Louise Golden described "Anyone" as being a song that showcased the band's musical progression from Lemonade and Brownies, since it was a melodic track that was still heavy. Appearance in ''Fathers' Day'' Around the time the record was being made, the band appeared in the Warner Bros. comedy film ''Fathers' Day'', which starred Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Nastassja Kinski. Sugar Ray figured as a major plot point in the film, since the teenage son of one of the protagonists decides to run away to follow them on tour. Sugar Ray weren't well known when the project was being filmed, and the makers were at one point considering that they portray a fictional underground band called "The Mutilated Puppies", rather than themselves. Due to their later pop success, some critics would label ''Fathers' Day'' as being out of touch with youth culture for portraying Sugar Ray as an edgy, underground band, with the critics believing that the band had already become popular when the film was made. == Musical style ==

Floored has been categorized as funk metal, nu metal and alternative metal. It features elements of heavy metal, funk, new wave, reggae, pop, hardcore, skate punk, ska and hip hop. 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." In July 1997, he also said that the song "Fly" fit with their philosophy of mixing different genres. Frazier also noted in this interview that Sugar Ray were being labelled as imitators of Sublime, because of "Fly" and the fact they got David Kahne to produce their album. He said that while the bands did share musical similarities, the comparison between the two mainly came from "growing up in beach communities". In a July 1997 article about their role in ''Fathers' Day, British publication Kerrang! referred to Sugar Ray as "super-sexy US rap-rocking rascals". Ron Hart of CMJ New Music Report considered their sound on this album to be "metallic funk" in December 1998, while Spin referred to them as a punk-funk band 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 featured artists such as Bush, Counting Crows, Jewel, No Doubt and Third Eye Blind, and was the first time Sugar Ray ever performed "Fly" live. It was a mostly free event, and is considered to be the tenth largest concert in history, with estimates being that it had 250,000 to 500,000 people in attendance. In an interview from June 25, 1997, Rodney Sheppard claimed that during Sugar Ray's part of the concert, there were 110,000 people in attendance. The video was directed by Joseph McGinty "McG" Nichol, and based on the version of the song with Super Cat. Over the next two months, it would be frequently played on MTV's alternative show 120 Minutes, with the video first appearing on the June 22, 1997 episode of the program. The video was also being played on MTV's Buzz Bin. Sugar Ray knew Limp Bizkit through DJ Lethal, who became a member of that band after co-producing Lemonade and Brownies and leaving House of Pain. ''Three Dollar Bill, Y'all included a song called "Indigo Flow" which referenced Sugar Ray and several other musicians that were friends with Limp Bizkit, while Floored'''s liner notes mentioned Limp Bizkit, alongside other bands that Sugar Ray were friends with, such as the Bloodhound Gang and Dog Eat Dog. As "Fly" continued to gain popularity, they were chosen as the musical guests for the July 24, 1997 episode of ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien, where they performed the song. Following this, Sugar Ray invited Smash Mouth to join them on a run of shows in the United States, which lasted from late July 1997 to August 1997. Like Limp Bizkit, Smash Mouth had also just released their debut album in July 1997, which was titled Fush Yu Mang''. Prior to doing the shows together, the media had been comparing Smash Mouth to Sugar Ray, since they were both lighthearted ska-influenced bands from Southern California. Sugar Ray's American crowds began to increase around this period, with their previous U.S. tour for Lemonade and Brownies having been done in very small clubs as a result of its poor sales. In a July 31, 1997 review of a Smash Mouth and Sugar Ray concert, MTV compared the appearance of Mark McGrath to actor Ethan Hawke, and said that young women "packed the front row [and] were screaming and grabbing for a hold" of McGrath. 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). That same month, the music of Sugar Ray and Faith No More was featured together as part of an episode of Westwood One's Off The Record program, which focused on the two bands. A CD of this broadcast was also made. Between October and December 1997, Sugar Ray 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. The music video for the second single "RPM" was again directed by McG, and premiered in November 1997, while the shows with 311 and Incubus were happening. During the touring cycle, they covered the easy listening song "After the Lovin'" by Engelbert Humperdinck, and "We're Not Gonna Take It" by glam metal band Twisted Sister, with this being a song they would cover again in 2001. They also performed Canada's national anthem "O Canada" during a tour of Canada in early 1998, and occasionally included in their setlists "Hold Your Eyes", which was one of the light R&B-influenced songs from Lemonade and Brownies. 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. McGrath had a similar crowd incident during the tour for 1999's 14:59, where he was intoxicated and berated the crowd before dropping his pants and exposing himself. In addition to appearing as themselves in ''Fathers' Day'', Sugar Ray's song "Speed Home California" was also featured in the film. In September 1997, they appeared on a tribute album for punk musician Iggy Pop titled We Will Fall: The Iggy Pop Tribute, where they contributed a cover of his 1988 song "Cold Metal". Sugar Ray had previously done covers of songs by the punk bands Black Flag and Circle Jerks, with these appearing on the Japanese edition of Lemonade and Brownies, along with a Ted Nugent cover. In late 1997, Sugar Ray and The Wilson Sisters recorded a cover of The Beach Boys' Christmas song "Little Saint Nick", with the cover being released as a single by Atlantic/Lava in 1997. On November 18, 1997, Sugar Ray contributed the song "Rivers" to the Scream 2 soundtrack album. The song can be heard in the credits of the film itself, which was released to theaters on December 12, 1997. It was an ode to Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo and written in the style of a Weezer song. The song was not recorded during the Floored sessions, and instead originated during a recording session at Image Studios in Hollywood. Karges claimed in 2019 that he can't remember whether or not the band knew the song was going to be on the Scream 2 soundtrack when they were recording it. He said they were fans of Weezer and that the song was a way of "paying homage" to Cuomo. The recording session for "Rivers" yielded an additional unreleased song called "I Love My Television", which the band thought sounded like Van Halen's "Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love". Sugar Ray first played "Rivers" in July 1997, while Scream 2 was still being filmed. During one of the song's early performances, McGrath incorrectly claimed to the audience that Cuomo had died before they played the song. In 2009, Cuomo would allow Sugar Ray to record an unreleased Weezer song called "Love Is the Answer", with this song appearing on Sugar Ray's album Music for Cougars. ==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 August 1997, Floored was certified gold in the United States, and in September of that year, 510,000 copies had been sold. By December 1997, sales had increased to 1,200,000 copies. 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. The sales for Floored were much higher than the sales for Lemonade and Brownies were. By September 1997, two-and-a-half years after it was released, Lemonade and Brownies had sold a mere 48,000 copies. "RPM", the second single from Floored, had a heavier sound similar to much 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." The commercial success of Floored gave the band members enough money to start living separately from each other. When Sugar Ray were making Lemonade and Brownies and Floored, they had all shared a house together in the Los Angeles suburb of Hancock Park. ==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." AllMusic awarded it a four out of five star rating, saying 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." In the October 18, 1997 issue of British publication Kerrang!, they compared "Fly" to Sublime, and said "so it's finally happening for Sugar Ray. With a fanny magnet like Mark McGrath upfront, it was only a matter of time until MTV picked up these hard rockin 'n' rappin dudes from Orange County, California." A mixed review at the time came from the Tampa Bay Times, who called Floored a "bland alt-metal record" in July 1997. 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 in 2003 that "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." 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 Insane Clown Posse, 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. ==Track listing==

;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 ==Charts==

Weekly charts Year-end charts ==Certifications==