{"id":74291,"date":"2020-09-24T12:37:01","date_gmt":"2020-09-24T17:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/?p=74291"},"modified":"2020-09-24T12:37:01","modified_gmt":"2020-09-24T17:37:01","slug":"hootie-the-blowfish-cracked-rear-view-classic-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/2020\/09\/24\/hootie-the-blowfish-cracked-rear-view-classic-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Hootie & The Blowfish: Cracked Rear View CLASSIC REVIEW"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Hootie & The Blowfish \u2013 either you love \u2018em or you hate \u2018em. Some even call them the Nickelback of the 90s. Either way, you cannot dispute the absolute star power of their 1994 release, Cracked Rear View<\/em>. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Cracked is the 10th most successful album in this country\u2019s recording history. Not bad for a band for which Nine Inch Nails\u2019 frontman Trent Reznor called for their \u201cdeath\u201d in a 1997 Rolling Stone interview<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So, who are Hootie & The Blowfish? The Columbia, SC band is made up of lead singer Darius Rucker, guitarist Mark Bryan, drummer Jim (Soni) Sonefeld, and bassist Dean Felber. Most people mistake Rucker as \u201cHootie,\u201d but alas, he is not. The band name is a mixture of the nicknames of two of the band\u2019s college friends at the University of South Carolina at the time. The story goes that Bryan decided to group up with Rucker after he heard the frontman singing in the shower. The duo sang cover songs in their inimitable smooth style, in direct contrast of the grungy, hard rock sounds of bands like Nirvana and Metallica, among others, and then they joined up with Felder \u2013 a former high school friend of Bryan\u2019s. That is probably why Hootie stood out from the rest of melodic pack, because their sound was just SO different.<\/p>\n

Rucker and the band were not an overnight success. Record labels rejected them. A LOT of them. Festivals turned them down, but they persisted, nevertheless. \u201cIf you played Hootie, you were uncool,\u201d Rucker told the New York Times. \u201cYou know, we understood.\u201d<\/p>\n

I remember going to see Hootie & The Blowfish perform several times in 1995 on the Cracked tour…once at Kilroy\u2019s in Greensboro, NC and then at the Mad Monk in Wilmington, NC. They put on an EPIC live show, one I will put on par with U2\u2019s \u201cZoo TV\u201d tour and Garth Brooks\u2019 \u201cThe Chase\u201d tour. Outstanding.<\/p>\n

‘Cause I’ve Got a Hand for You…\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cracked Rear View was released almost 26 years ago in 1994, after Hootie signed with Atlantic Records. No one saw them coming, and I mean no one. The band had been playing most of the songs on the album for eight years at this point, and the recording\/mastering of Cracked only took about three to four weeks from start to finish. Then hit after hit after hit came out, and suddenly the band no one wanted to sign or let play saw their second studio album (no one really claims their first album in 1993 \u2013 Kootchypop. Listen at your own peril) go platinum 10 times over.<\/p>\n

The first single, \u201cHold My Hand,\u201d was released in July 1994 to major critical success. A great acoustic guitar riff started it off, and then Rucker starts in after about 4 measures with his smooth southern vocals. Then the second guitar comes in underneath, and then the drums some towards the end of the first verse. Such a smoothly layered track, juxtaposed to other top songs of 1995 (Ina Kamoze\u2019s \u201cHere Comes the Hotstepper,\u201d Coolio\u2019s \u201cGangsta\u2019s Paradise,\u201d and Montell Jordan\u2019s \u201cThis is How We Do It,\u201d just to name a few).<\/p>\n

But Stipe’s Not Far Behind…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bands like R.E.M. (University of Georgia, Athens) came just a few years before Hootie, and they really paved the way for this four-part band from Columbia, SC. Rucker owed so much to R.E.M. that he even gave Michael Stipe a shout-out in their second single, \u201cLet Her Cry.\u201d Rucker once again starts his smooth vocals over an acoustic guitar, but this time, a synth kicks in during the first verse along with a tambourine and a rolling drum set. The rising action of the song really builds up well into the chorus, and Rucker just nails it. Just a hint of vibrato in his voice marries well with the instrumentation.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s almost as if they\u2019re not even trying that hard. With the smooth vocals, the effortless fretwork, and the perfect timing of the drums, it\u2019s almost as if Hootie took a page out of Ric Ocasek and the Cars\u2019 playbook, and they\u2019re letting the good times roll. \u201cLet Her Cry\u201d is the kind of song that turns any concert into a singalong, and it is personally my favorite track on the album.<\/p>\n

I Can\u2019t Help It If I\u2019m Lucky…<\/strong><\/p>\n

The song that gets Hootie in trouble with the fans is their third hit, \u201cOnly Wanna Be With You.\u201d It saw success on the Billboard charts, but fair-weather fans panned the simplicity and silliness of the song\u2019s lyrics. Hootie was never a philosophically deep band, but this song made even the hardcore purists question the nature of the song. It ended up as the #33 song of the year in 1995, but the video was just as silly and random as the song itself. With lyrics like, \u201cI’m such a baby, yeah, the Dolphins make me cry,\u201d Rucker\u2019s NFL fandom for Miami got a shoutout, along with his love and admiration for Bob Dylan. The release of the single \u201cTime\u201d in October 1995 was a better song than \u201cOnly Wanna Be With You.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hidden gems on Cracked<\/em> are many. \u201cHannah Jane\u201d is a fun listen, and more upbeat than some of their other songs. \u201cRunning from an Angel\u201d has a decidedly country twang, maybe a precursor to Rucker\u2019s country solo career? And I love the sweet piano intro and Billy Joel feel of \u201cGoodbye.\u201d<\/p>\n

All in all, whether you like the body of work produced by Hootie & The Blowfish or not, Cracked Rear View<\/em> is certainly one of the best albums ever made. Their follow up ventures, however, did not do them any favors. Their third album, Fairweather Johnson, was awful, and killed any momentum the band had with Cracked<\/em>. Therefore, put the rest of their discography in your rear view, and act like Cracked<\/em> was the only album they ever produced. You\u2019ll thank me later.<\/p>\n

(P.S. The band reunited last year for the 25th anniversary of Cracked Rear View<\/em>, and toured the country promoting their 2019 release, Imperfect Circle \u2013 their first new release in 14 years. It was meh.)
\n
\nRecommended If You Like: Big Head Todd & The Monsters, The Wallflowers, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Del Amitri, Better Than Ezra
\nRecommended Tracks: 3 (Let Her Cry), 2 (Hold My Hand), 8 (Time), 1 (Hannah Jane), 4 (Only Wanna be With You), 11 Goodbye)
\nDo Not Play: None
\nWritten by John V. Wood on 09\/23\/2020 <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this classic review, we revisit the #1 album of 1995 and one of the best selling albums of the decade from Hootie & The Blowfish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22146,"featured_media":74292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8514,3235],"tags":[1709,8530,8528,8529,8526],"class_list":["post-74291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-classic-reviews","category-music-reviews","tag-alternative-flashback-2","tag-classic-review","tag-cracked-rear-view","tag-hootie-the-blowfish","tag-john-v-wood"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Hootie__the_Blowfish_-_Cracked_Rear_View.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}