Here For The Long Run
Sugar Ray by Sugar Ray
Sugar Ray front man Mark McGrath has not yet decided if his career aspiration is updating Paul McCartney hooks with current grooves or serving as Anthony Kiedis' apostle in making pop music just a little edgier. The former appears to offer more career longevity and enough candidates exist for the latter, including 3EB's Stephan Jenkins and Jimi Haha from Jimmie's Chicken Shack.
Meanwhile, McGrath's influence covers the self-titled Sugar Ray album with the comfort of a heavy blanket on a winter night. His voice remains smooth, even sweetened to a degree by over-zealous production values, but it is the elasticity of an octave jump reminiscent of McCartney's dynamics in Got To Get You Into My Life where McGrath earns his appellation of front man. He is no longer simply the lead singer, but the indispensable part of the band. It's his band, not because his is the voice singing; rather, his is the voice directing.
Sugar Ray is a safe album, blazing no new ground, but firmly establishing the band's place as an automatic Top 40 entry for its next several releases. Pop music experienced a changing of the guard from the 1970s and early 1980s when bands returned with clockwork precision to chart success every eighteen months. Sugar Ray now leads several bands whose efforts will generate the flurry of excitement formerly reserved for releases by Bruce Springsteen, Rod Stewart, Elton John and other artists who still make pleasant music, but have lost the ability to transform the genre. With a few nods to the Chili Peppers and similar California alt-pop bands, Sugar Ray joins The Goo Goo Dolls in wanting to be this generation's Hall and Oates or Chicago.
That is not such a bad thing. Thomas Jefferson notwithstanding, I don't want a revolution every generation. Neither do the boys in Sugar Ray apparently with the release of their retro album that features a Beach Boys homage on the cover, an old Atlantic label on the CD, a Brady Bunch back photo and name checks to bands, radio stations and the band's own hits.
Dropping The Needle, Cut by Cut
A listener might be excused for remembering bad 1980s hair bands as an acoustic guitar gives way to a distorted guitar and back into a power ballad called Answer The Phone. Drink your Poison now because Bret Michaels and Company last played this music a decade ago. The song is pleasant enough and is the first indication that this is going to be the safe, establishing album. The lyrics are not edgy, but do have a hint of spiciness that will excite the high school crowd.
Radio and Records is charting airplay for When It's Over at #11 on its Hot AC chart. That is up a whole bunch in just a week. Still buried in the 50s, the song is also moving up Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart. There is no question that this clone of 14:59's Every Morning is going to hit big as the first single from the album. The song is derivative to the point of similar percussion, guitar leads and arrangements. The vocal arrangements particularly evoke McCartney's early work with Denny Laine in Wings when McCartney's voice was double or triple tracked to contrast against Laine's single track. Being June and a danceable cut, you will hear When Its Over blaring from car radios for the next several months.
An acoustic bed continues into Under The Sun, the band's early look back at nostalgia. Perhaps you remember a parent nervously clucking their tongue when you first expounded on things nostalgic. "You're still so young, you haven't the weariness that sounds so jaded on your tongue", wrote Elvis Costello a decade ago. With all due respect to Sugar Ray, I'm not ready yet for Run-D.M.C. and Culture Club nostalgia. Helping evoke the image of those lost 1980s souls, the pop song slides into a chorus ripped from a bad post-Gabriel J. Geils album.
Pop sounds continue on Satellites, but the tone is 1970s, not the decade later lauded by the previous song. A wall of sound that makes Phil Spector appear to be a minimalist muddies the hooks and leaves the band with a loud pop tune that doesn't have an opportunity to engage the listener. The last twenty seconds are spent in mock studio chatter that should ensure the song remains an album cut favorite among fans. True to their Beatles roots, Sugar Ray misses the mark when they overcomplicate a song. George Martin rarely let The Beatles have such free reign, particularly until 1966. Veteran producer Don Gilmore, who has worked with Eve 6 and Lit among other young bands, should have known better.
Waiting remains in the same decade, a paen to Rod and Ron (Stewart and Wood) and the rest of the Faces who popularized this mod pop song. I do not care for the guitar mix, which I think is overdriven to the point where they shroud the vocals. That is surprising because this is one of the four cuts mixed by Chris Lord-Alge, who with his brother Tom and other siblings have to be considered rock's dynasty of record production. Those familiar with the Six Degrees of Separation game can't play a musical version without bumping into one of the Lord-Alge clan in less than three moves. Go ahead and try it yourself on allmusic.com or one of the other comprehensive sites. The result of the sloppy mix is another overly safe song that never completely engages the listener. Again, not bad, but not what this band is capable of producing.
A ballad is going to have to hit from the album and Ours is my prediction for a song that will have high school couples close dancing at homecoming games throughout the country this fall. All the elements that made Sugar Ray's sound fresh exist here: a very solid ballad a la Babyface, edgy lyrics, a hook-laden vocal arrangement and a killer understated groove from DJ Homicide. This is not the best cut on the album, but it is the most commercially viable and the type of song that will constitute the bulk of royalties in the future Sugar Ray catalogs.
Guitarist Rodney Sheppard finally gets a show piece - one of two on the album - on Sorry Now, which would ordinarily be just another Poison pellet with the exception of a crisp lead Sheppard contributes as hook. McGrath leads this Beach Boys meets power ballad concoction and almost veers off one of his Newport Beach bluffs, but some deft record production and the Sheppard guitar work barely save the song.
Nick Hexum, 3-1-1's lead singer, duets with McGrath on Stay On, which one anticipates will be the second single. The two Chili Pepper followers tone down the raucousness and harmonize well over a modified alt-skiffle. Given the popularity each brings and the novelty of two vocalists from leading bands, I was surprised to see that this was not the first single. There is a nice hook here, and the boys blend well. My guess is that you will hear about this tune again as the Grammy nominations buzz starts in the next few months.
Again paying homage to the past, the interval from Over the Rainbow opens Words To Me over a killer groove and the trademarked Sugar Ray mélange of studio techniques, scratching, sweet acoustic guitar lead, rhythm breaks and vocal track acrobatics. This is the truest to Sugar Ray's past that any song on the album approaches, but without them, you find you're listening to a down tempo version of Thunder Island, down to the "la la la la" chorus.
Country-rock, the old Eagles variety, not the stuff Mutt Lange is writing for his wife, punctuates Just A Little. This would have been considered groundbreaking on One of These Nights or Hotel California, but simply seems a mundane change of pace here.
Since they were stuck in the 1970s, the album closes with a Stones cut that they never heard before the boys in Sugar Ray wrote it last year. Disasterpiece is actually too polished for The Stones, but Sheppard turns in another gorgeous solo and if McGrath's voice is too smooth to emulate Jagger, then Sheppard at least gave his all in copying Keith. The sequence works, but the song is out of context and perhaps only serves to remind the listener that the boys can still rock. Not arena rock, mind you, and not enough to spend the night together, but enough for a few hours.
The Bottom Line, Skips and All
Sugar Ray has arrived. Their fourth album establishes their pop credentials. McGrath can have a long career as songwriter or frontman on his own, and I fully expect my youngest to be listening to his music a decade or two for now. An artist does not need to move the cultural needle with each new release. Breaking new ground is exciting, but Sugar Ray should not be embarrassed at this well-crafted album. Their style continues to transcend age and most fan types, making this album highly recommended for anyone listening to current Top 40 or those who want a relatively painless introduction to a more updated pop sound.
