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BangShift Tune-Up: “Mean Machine” by Sugar Ray (1995)


BangShift Tune-Up: “Mean Machine” by Sugar Ray (1995)

I want you to think for a moment about everything you know about the band Sugar Ray, the late 1990s pop wonder machine that spit out such memorable radio fodder as “Fly”, “Someday”, and “Every Morning”, and go throw it straight into the garbage disposal, right now. Look, the pop version of Sugar Ray wasn’t that bad, really…they are laid back songs that work for lazy summer afternoons and cruising. That is the older, wiser, and better-paid Sugar Ray that you know.

Sugar Ray before “Fly” was a wholly different animal. They were younger, hungrier, and played whatever worked for them in the moment…none of it was brilliant, but catchy and energetic, it was. The mature band had the album “14:59”, which almost eerily predicted the peak of their career. “Mean Machine” is from the album “Lemonade and Brownies” (you can figure that joke out, can’t you?), that had actress Nicole Eggert on the cover in a bombshell pose that captured the eye no matter what. “Every Morning” is the song that makes you want to lay in a hammock, nicely buzzed, and relax the day away. “Mean Machine” was one of the more memorable tracks from the video game “Road Rash 3D” and seemed perfectly suited for when you rode up next to another bike and broke out a length of steel pipe meant for grievous bodily injury.

Bills don’t pay themselves and while songs like “Mean Machine” are fun and a blast, summertime pop hits paid the bills. Mosh-pit motion makers about a 1968 Coupe de Ville, not so much.


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