Wikipedia

14:59

14:59 is the third studio album by American rock band Sugar Ray, released on January 12, 1999. The album shows the band moving into a more mainstream pop rock sound, due to the success of their single "Fly" off their prior album Floored, and its title self-deprecatingly references the "15 minutes of fame" critics claimed the band was riding on. It entered the top 20 on the Billboard 200, peaking at number 17[3] and being certified triple-platinum by the RIAA.

14:59
Studio album by
Sugar Ray
ReleasedJanuary 12, 1999
Recorded1998
Studio
Genre
Length40:30
LabelAtlantic
ProducerDavid Kahne, except for "Abracadabra" which was produced by Ralph Sall
Sugar Ray chronology
Floored
(1997) 		14:59
(1999) 		Sugar Ray
(2001)
Singles from 14:59
  1. "Every Morning"
    Released: January 25, 1999[1]
  2. "Falls Apart"
    Released: May 12, 1999[2]
  3. "Someday"
    Released: September 7, 1999

Background

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During the writing sessions for their second album Floored, Sugar Ray wrote a much poppier track, the reggae song "Fly". The track's massive surprise success inspired the band to further pursue the sound on their following album, 14:59.[4] McGrath admitted "Fly" was "the blueprint now for experimentation".[5]

Music and lyrics

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The album's sound has elements of alternative rock[6] and pop rock.[7] "Aim for Me" is a punk rock track in the vein of Green Day and "Falls Apart" and "Personal Space Invader" take influence from the Police's Synchronicity and Men Without Hats,[8] while "Burning Dog" has a skate punk sound similar to the Offspring and "Live & Direct" features vocals from KRS-One.[9] In addition, "Every Morning" (that has been called an acoustic pop number[8]), "Someday" and "Ode to the Lonely Hearted" are reminiscent of previous hit single "Fly".[9] "Abracadabra" is a cover of a 1981 song by blues rock act the Steve Miller Band. The album also features two comedic songs titled "New Direction" as bookends, the former being in the vein of death metal and the latter a circus music instrumental.[8] In a July 1997 interview with MTV, McGrath had joked about how the band might write a circus/polka song for their third album, in reference to how they had previously experimented with soft reggae music on Floored and soft R&B music on Lemonade and Brownies.[10] The death metal opening track was written with the intention of scaring the new listeners the band had attracted on the strength of "Fly", and also parodies how the band were expected to go in a more accessible direction on this album.[11] Regarding the opening track, McGrath said in 2015, "back then, places like Tower Records had listening stations where you could preview the album before you bought it. I'm still in like super-prankster mode, going 'wouldn't it be funny if the first song on our song was a death-metal song?' so the first song you heard on 14:59 was 'New Direction,' a joke at our expense and possibly our pocketbook."[12]

Despite having a different sound than previous albums, Sheppard noted that the band still had the same lighthearted approach to music as before, saying: "we're not begging to be taken seriously. We'd feel stupid. We've been doing interviews for years saying we don't take ourselves seriously. It would be lame for us to say, 'Now we are'. We're still pranksters, just the lyrical content is more serious."[11] The single "Falls Apart" lyrically revolves around a lonely teenage girl, with McGrath saying in 1999 "high school wasn't the best for everybody, so this follows the life of a girl in high school and the ups and downs of what you can go through." He added that "I think it's more about me, but I'm scared to talk about myself so I put it in the third-person [about a] girl."[13] Drummer Stan Frazier, who co-wrote the single "Someday", said it was about how his girlfriend had remained faithful to him while he was on the road. He said, "I'm tempted to go with other women. And dogs. And men. And she has remained faithful. She was always so perfect and I was this f---ing guilty asshole."[14]

Touring and promotion

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Sugar Ray toured throughout 1999 and 2000 to support the album. Their first show of 1999 was on January 22nd, at the Snow Summit Resort in Big Bear Lake, California. This show was as part of MTV's "Snowed In 1999". From February 1999 and March 1999, they toured the United States with hip hop musician Everlast and the rap rock band 2 Skinnee J's.[15] The following month, they did an MTV-sponsored "Campus Invasion" tour with hip hop group Run-DMC and the industrial metal band Orgy.[15][16] Sugar Ray then did their first tour of Japan in May 1999, and played at a string of summer festivals in the United States, before cancelling a scheduled appearance at Woodstock '99. Regarding their cancelled appearance at Woodstock '99, McGrath said in 2016, "my throat gave away. My doctor goes, 'You either finish your tour or you go to Woodstock.' I went, 'Let’s finish the tour.'".[17] After cancelling their appearance at Woodstock '99, they toured the United States with Fastball and The Goo-Goo Dolls, with this tour lasting between July 1999 and August 1999. On October 28, 1999, Sugar Ray performed at the inaugural WB Music Awards in Las Vegas, which featured David Bowie, Garth Brooks, Faith Hill, Kid Rock, *NSYNC and Smash Mouth.[15] At the beginning of 2000, they did their first tour of Australia and New Zealand. For their shows in Australia, they were supported by Live and local band Rumanastone.[18] Later that they year, they also played played one-off shows in Malaysia and the Pacific island of Guam. Artists that Sugar Ray shared bills with during the touring cycle include 311, Barenaked Ladies, Blondie, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Edwin McCain, Jessica Simpson, Lou Bega, Luscious Jackson, Mandy Moore, Melissa Etheridge, Natalie Merchant, Save Ferris and Smash Mouth.[15] The band still continued to play some of their more metal-influenced songs from Floored and Lemonade and Brownies, and would continue to do so on later tours.[19]

In October 1998, three months before 14:59's release, Sugar Ray's cover of "Abracadabra" was included on Sabrina the Teenage Witch: The Album. which was a soundtrack album for the WB series of the same name.[20] The song "Glory" was used in the 1999 film American Pie, and featured on the soundtrack album.[21] In 1999, "Falls Apart" was featured in the WB series Charmed, with "Someday" also appearing in the WB series Roswell that same year.[13] In 2000, they did a Christmas-themed song with Rosie O'Donnell titled "Silver Bells", which appeared on her Christmas album Another Rosie Christmas.[22]

Reception

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Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic     [8]
Entertainment WeeklyC+[9]
The Guardian     [23]
The Independent     [24]
Los Angeles Times    [25]
NME     [26]
Q     [27]
Rolling Stone     [28]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide     [29]
Spin5/10[30]

The album was generally well received by critics. Paul Pearson of AllMusic wrote, "Their third album showed an alarming overhaul in their approach...from their metal shellac toward a calmer, melodious pastiche of songs. and concluded that 14:59 has such catchiness and charm that it's a guilty pleasure of high order, and a bigger step than one might have expected from Sugar Ray."[8] NME's referred to the album as a "hellishly difficult record to hate...Not that this is especially inspired stuff, but, if you wanted a soundtrack for the kind of sun-kissed pool-party the sleeve depicts, 14:59 is maybe as good as you could get today."[26] Rolling Stone praised the album for its diversity and for not sticking too closely to the sound of "Fly" stating that the band instead "...go[es] off the deep end with gorgeous psychedelic guitar hooks and drum loops, and Mark McGrath's wise-guy futon talk... everything they play is shaped by the cut-and-paste aesthetic of the sampler."[28] Robert Christgau picked out the album's song, "Every Morning", as a choice cut.[31]

David Browne of Entertainment Weekly was less positive and stated: "It's genuinely hard to hate Sugar Ray; [...] Still, listening to '14:59' is a somewhat sad, depressing experience. [...] The album is the sound of a band resigned to the possibility that they may be one-hit wunderkinds and that the 2 million fans who bought their last album may have moved on to Barenaked Ladies."[9]

Track listing

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All music is composed by Sugar Ray except where noted

No.TitleMusicLength
1."New Direction" 0:48
2."Every Morning" 3:39
3."Falls Apart"Sugar Ray, David Kahne4:15
4."Personal Space Invader"Sugar Ray, David Kahne3:38
5."Live & Direct" (featuring KRS-One)Sugar Ray, David Kahne4:34
6."Someday"Sugar Ray, David Kahne4:02
7."Aim for Me" 2:20
8."Ode to the Lonely Hearted"Nick Sopkovich, Sugar Ray, David Kahne3:12
9."Burning Dog" 3:01
10."Even Though" 2:35
11."Abracadabra" (Steve Miller Band cover)Steve Miller3:42
12."Glory" 3:26
13."New Direction" 1:18
Total length:40:37

Sugar Ray sold a different version of the 14:59 album to audiences that attended their live tour. This album included 5 tracks[32] not found on the retail version. These tracks are:

  • The hit "Fly" from their previous Floored album
  • The original demo recording of "Aim for Me"
  • A live acoustic version of "Every Morning"
  • The radio edit of "Falls Apart"
  • "Rivers", a song written in the style of and in tribute to Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo

Personnel

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Charts

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Certifications

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Region Certification Certified units/sales
Australia (ARIA)[40] Gold 35,000^
United States (RIAA)[41] 3× Platinum 3,000,000^

^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

References

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  1. ^ "エブリー・モーニング | シュガー・レイ" [Every Morning | Sugar Ray] (in Japanese). Oricon. Retrieved August 29, 2023.
  2. ^ "フォールズ・アパート | シュガー・レイ" [Falls Apart | Sugar Ray] (in Japanese). Oricon. Retrieved August 29, 2023.
  3. ^ "14:59 chart performance". Billboard. Prometheus Global Media. Archived from the original on June 14, 2011. Retrieved June 14, 2011.
  4. ^ "Interview with Mark McGrath of Sugar Ray". NY Rock. April 1999. Archived from the original on January 16, 2000. Retrieved February 8, 2012.
  5. ^ Q&A: Mark McGrath of Sugar Ray, Rolling Stone
  6. ^ Huey, Steve (2002). "Sugar Ray - Biography". AllMusic. Retrieved February 25, 2012.
  7. ^ "14:59". NME. May 15, 1999. Retrieved June 14, 2011.
  8. ^ a b c d e Pearson, Paul. "14:59 – Sugar Ray". AllMusic. Retrieved June 14, 2011.
  9. ^ a b c d Browne, David (January 25, 1999). "14:59". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on June 7, 2011. Retrieved June 14, 2011.
  10. ^ "Sugar Ray Scores Hit With 'Fly'". MTV. Archived from the original on December 2, 2022.
  11. ^ a b Louise Golden, Anna (2000). Sugar Ray. St. Martin's Publishing Group. Retrieved 3 July 2022.
  12. ^ "Every Morning by Sugar Ray - Songfacts".
  13. ^ a b "Falls Apart by Sugar Ray - Songfacts".
  14. ^ "Someday by Sugar Ray - Songfacts".
  15. ^ a b c d "Sugar Ray's 1999 Concert & Tour History | Concert Archives".
  16. ^ "Questions & Answers - UB Reporter". www.buffalo.edu.
  17. ^ "Mark McGrath Sets the Record Straight on Scooby-Doo and Woodstock '99". HuffPost. December 1, 2016.
  18. ^ "Sugar Ray's 2000 Concert & Tour History | Concert Archives".
  19. ^ McElhiney, Brian (August 2, 2009). "Sugar Ray expects wide range of fans during tour". The Daily Gazette Family of Newspapers.
  20. ^ <https://www.allmusic.com/album/sabrina-the-teenage-witch-original-tv-soundtrack--mw0000044094
  21. ^ "American Pie (1999) - IMDb". IMDb.
  22. ^ "Another Rosie Christmas - Rosie O'Donnell | Album | AllMusic" – via www.allmusic.com.
  23. ^ Sullivan, Caroline (May 28, 1999). "Sugar Ray: 14:59 (Atlantic)". The Guardian.
  24. ^ Perry, Tim (June 5, 1999). "Album Reviews". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2022-05-01. Retrieved March 8, 2020.
  25. ^ Nichols, Natalie (January 11, 1999). "Time Isn't Quite Up Yet for Sugar Ray in New Album '14:59'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 14, 2013.
  26. ^ a b Chick, Stevie (June 15, 1999). "14:59". NME. Retrieved September 6, 2022.
  27. ^ "Sugar Ray: 14:59". Q. No. 153. June 1999. p. 114.
  28. ^ a b Howling Wolf (January 12, 1999). "Sugar Ray: 14:59". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on November 16, 2007. Retrieved May 5, 2012.
  29. ^ Harris, Keith (2004). "Sugar Ray". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. p. 791. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
  30. ^ LePage, Mark (February 1999). "Sugar Ray: 14:59". Spin. Vol. 15, no. 2. pp. 110, 112. Retrieved October 30, 2018.
  31. ^ Christgau, Robert (October 26, 1999). "Consumer Guide: Easy Money". The Village Voice. Retrieved December 3, 2015.
  32. ^ 14:59 [Tour Edition] at AllMusic. Retrieved February 8, 2012.
  33. ^ "Australiancharts.com – Sugar Ray – 14:59". Hung Medien. Retrieved October 13, 2021.
  34. ^ "Austriancharts.at – Sugar Ray – 14:59" (in German). Hung Medien. Retrieved October 13, 2021.
  35. ^ "Offiziellecharts.de – Sugar Ray – 14:59" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved October 13, 2021.
  36. ^ "Charts.nz – Sugar Ray – 14:59". Hung Medien. Retrieved October 13, 2021.
  37. ^ "Official Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved October 13, 2021.
  38. ^ "Sugar Ray Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved October 13, 2021.
  39. ^ "Top Billboard 200 Albums – Year-End 1999". Billboard. Retrieved October 13, 2021.
  40. ^ "ARIA Charts – Accreditations – 2000 Albums" (PDF). Australian Recording Industry Association. Retrieved December 27, 2021.
  41. ^ "American album certifications – Sugar Ray – 14:59". Recording Industry Association of America. Retrieved August 21, 2024.
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