★★★★★
Sound: A 'best of'/greatest hits record from Sugar Ray was inevitable, and the fact that they released it five studio albums into their career is impressive for a band that is barely known beyond a handful of its singles. The sunny, infectious melodies, lilting reggae-lite and acoustic grooves that define the "Sugar Ray sound" are present here along with their rockier singles and a few lesser-known, harder cuts (which, quite frankly, aren't nearly as interesting as their better-known songs)...
- www.ultimate-guitar.com
2012-09-20
★★★★★
When Sugar Ray ditched the power rap metal of their amazing 1995 debut, Lemonade & Brownies, and then garnered huge mainstream, multi-platinum success with the single Fly, I all but assumed it was the one-hit wonder death knell. Now, on their fifth disc, the West Coast band survived 1999's fatalistically titled 14:59 - their 15 minutes are more than up and they're doing just fine. Sugar Ray are all about sunny skies and goofy times, and the first single, Mr...
- www.hour.ca
2010-11-09
★★★★★
By the time you finish reading this article, there is a good chance that the latest pop sensation will have already come and gone. Another one of those borderline-novelty acts with, perhaps, one decent song to its name will have bubbled up, scored a hit complete with an overplayed video, sold millions of records, and then released a follow-up that only a small portion of its previous audience cares about...
- ew.com
2010-08-27
★★★★★
"Summer won't end this summer," sings Mark McGrath in the previously unreleased "Shot of Laughter," and that's an understatement: Summer never ends in this amiable band's sun-strafed Southern California pop. Sugar Ray began as a funk-metal party act (according to the liner notes, their first gig was "a kegger on 31st street") but hit their stride with 1997's ragga-lite smash "Fly...
- www.blender.com
2010-08-22
★★★★★
Sound: Its been over a decade since Sugar Ray first defined summer soundtracks with easy-going songs such as "Fly," "Someday," and "Every Morning," and its safe to say that never again will they enjoy such prominence. While some bands or artists would take a moment to re-evaluate their careers and perhaps decided this is the time call it quits or totally redefine themselves, not so with Sugar Ray...
- www.ultimate-guitar.com
2009-11-15
★★★★★
It's anyone's guess why this L.A. pop-rock act -- a huge commercial draw in the late '90s but one that hasn't released a new studio disc since 2003's comparatively soft-selling "In the Pursuit of Leisure" -- chose this moment of worldwide economic instability to stage a comeback: With a long line of barely distinguishable hits such as "Fly," "Someday" and "Every Morning," Sugar Ray soundtracked the boom-times brio of the pre-9/11 era more enthusiastically than anybody else...
- latimesblogs.latimes.com
2009-10-31
★★★★★
These Orange County guys ? known for decade-old frat-soul hits like "Fly" and "Every Morning" ? haven't gotten near the top of a pop chart since early in W.'s administration, but on their sixth album they're still turning out pop rock so good-natured it practically gives you a big smile and a fist-bump...
- www.rollingstone.com
2009-08-29
★★★★★
Mark McGrath & Co. are back after six years with Music for Cougars, and still churning out affable pop-rock for various beer-commercial activities (beach volleyball, slo-mo water-balloon fights). And though aphorisms like "If you wanna see the rainbow/You gotta sit through a little rain" don't exactly blow the doors of perception wide open, tracks like the reggae-tinged "Girls Were Made to Love" and Sublime-lite "Boardwalk" are all in good-natured, hey-brah fun.
- ew.com
2009-07-17
★★★★★
No text for this review; see http://robertchristgau.com/xg/bk-cg90/grades-90s.php.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10