These days, it’s almost hip to hate Hootie & The Blowfish.
\nIt’s easy to slam them for being lightweight and so much AOR fodder
\n– but then again, aren’t these people who make fun of them the same
\nsheep that led the band’s debut release
\nCracked Rear View<\/i> to be the best-selling album in Atlantic
\nRecords’ catalog?<\/p>\n
And while radio made the big mistake of oversaturating the
\nairwaves with many of the singles off this album, the fact remains
\nthat
\nCracked Rear View<\/i> isn’t that bad an album. I still don’t
\nunderstand how it sold as well as it did, but it’s pretty damn
\ncatchy at times.<\/p>\n
With Darius Rucker’s acoustic guitar and deep baritone delivery,
\nHootie’s sound is pretty recognizable almost from note number one.
\nMark Bryan’s electric leads often are quite flowing (though live,
\nit seems hard for him to keep his guitar in tune), while bassist
\nDean Felber and drummer Jim Sonefeld provide a strong backbone for
\nthe music – powerful, but not too showy.<\/p>\n
From what I remember, there were really only four singles
\nreleased from
\nCracked Rear View<\/i>, although at least two other got
\nsignificant airplay or publicity. Their debut single “Hold My Hand”
\nwas originally shipped to the alternative stations – I distinctly
\nremember WKQX-FM in Chicago playing it quite a bit – only to drop
\nit like a lead brick once it became a mainstream hit. The harmonies
\non this song – as well as the undeniable power of the acoustic
\nguitar – were the keys to the success of this track, as well as
\nRucker’s delivery.<\/p>\n
Then, there’s the followup “Let Her Cry,” which I swore if I
\nheard one more time on the radio, I was going to vomit. A syrupy
\nsweet tale of love lost and life wasted, VH-1 and radio drooled all
\nover this like a 12-year-old kid staring at nude Anna Nicole Smith
\npictures on the Internet. The song, in fact, is way too syrupy for
\nmy tastes – the world already had one weeping singer in the person
\nof Johnnie Ray, and he’s dead, okay? Give it up.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, the next two singles were some of the best work on
\nthe album. “Only Wanna Be With You,” self-deprecating video and
\nall, is a charmer with a distinctively Latin tinge in the main
\nrhythm. It’s a great tune that I have yet to get tired of hearing.
\nSame thing goes for “Time,” which demonstrates the complete power
\nand control that Rucker and crew have over their sound. If any song
\ndeserved the attention of the audience, it was this one.<\/p>\n
Two other songs off
\nCracked Rear View<\/i> got limited attention. I remember some
\nChicago radio stations touting “Drowning” as a up-and-coming
\nsingle, only to disappear in the shadow of the latter two tracks.
\nToo bad – “Drowning” is probably the angriest that Hootie & The
\nBlowfish have gotten in their music to date, and their music could
\nuse a little more of that fire. The other song, “I’m Goin’ Home,”
\nis a powerfully poignant piece Rucker sings about the death of a
\nloved one. (I remember that the band performed this song on one of
\nthe numerous New Year’s Eve specials on TV in 1994-1995.) It’s
\nanother song that radio could have leaped on, but didn’t.<\/p>\n
There are some weak spots on
\nCracked Rear View<\/i>, the same ones I would almost expect to
\nhear on any debut album. The band isn’t able to maintain a high
\nquality level on all the songs – “Not Even The Trees” and
\n“Goodbye,” the album closers, are pretty much throwaways. Even the
\npiece featuring then-unknown Lily Haydn – “Look Away” – isn’t one
\nthat sticks out.<\/p>\n
But there is enough on
\nCracked Rear View<\/i> that helps shed some light as to why this
\nband gained a lot of popularity. Radio saturation and strong
\nword-of-mouth helped their case a lot, as did VH-1. And undoubtedly
\nit remains the band’s best work (as we await the release of the
\nthird album, due sometime this year.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5695],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-38867","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-hootie-the-blowfish","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38867"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38867"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}