About “Fly”

“Fly” is a song by rock band Sugar Ray. It appears on their 1997 album Floored twice: one version with reggae artist Super Cat (Track 4) and the other without (Track 13).

The song became the band’s first hit, holding the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 Airplay chart for four consecutive weeks and spending eight weeks at the No. 1 spot on the Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart. A single was not released commercially in the US, thus preventing it from charting on the Billboard Hot 100 at the time. The song also reached No. 1 on Canada’s Singles Chart.“Fly” did not sound anything at all like the rest of the tracks on the album, being the only reggae fusion track. As a result of the success of “Fly”, Floored sold extremely well and was certified double platinum. However, by the end of 1997, critics skeptical that Sugar Ray could put out another successful song labeled them a one-hit wonder. This assumption was noted and accepted by the band, who in playful defiance, named their next album 14:59 in a reference to Andy Warhol’s “15 minutes of fame”; that album became certified triple-platinum and outsold its predecessor.

The song was included on VH1’s countdown of the “100 Greatest Songs of the ‘90s” at number 52.