When Hootie and the Blowfish first exploded onto the scene back in 1995 (and by exploded, I mean along the lines of an atomic bomb, they arrived on a scene that was ready for something different. We had survived grunge music, and were preparing to embark on a road of 90’s rock that would produce some memorable bands (like the Goo Goo Dolls, Smashing Pumpkins, and several others) and some not so memorable one hit wonders (like Eagle Eye Cherry and Tonic). All that was fun about the 90’s, for me, would be captured when I went to see the MP3.com tour, headlined by the Goo Goo Dolls and Tonic. It was an inexpensive show, and was perhaps the last time the Dolls, Tonic, and MP3.com were all relevant.
In any case, Cracked Rear View is a very fun album, filled with catchy tunes (Hold My Hand, Only Wanna Be With You), some deep tunes (Time, Let Her Cry, Goodbye), and gave the world a bit of sort of a preview of the later indie folk-country revival that would begin in the mid-aughts. Hootie was everywhere, playing sold out tours in huge venues, making appearances in various TV shows, and playing assorted music award shows. I even remember seeing them on a shipment of spiral notebooks over at Target one day, right next to the ones for the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (and I mean the original ones, not the numerous spinoffs that bastardized the name) and those Lisa Frank notebooks that made you wonder if the makers had at some point taken acid before sending these things out to mass production. But to summarize it, Hootie was a phenomenon, and a profitable one. All that it needed to sustain itself was a capable sophomore album.
So when Hootie's second album, Fairweather Johnson, finally hit stores, there was very high expectations. But really, it really had several factors running against it's success. There was no way that this album would ever match the prior albums sales, which for the longest time was the second highest selling album since Pearl Jam’s Ten. I have to believe that industry execs knew that.
As you all well know, sophomore albums can make or break a band. In my opinion, there really are two sophomore albums that result in success. The first is an album that builds slightly off of your critically acclaimed, but modest selling, debut. It more or less has to show growth, progress, a bit of a tune up before your have you monster hit that launches you into superstardom. A good example of this is U2’s October, which is a perfect bridge between Boy and War, the latter of which is U2 finding their voice and unleashing it onto a unsuspecting public. Seeing as how Hootie already had found their distinctive sound, this result was unrealistic.
The second sophomore album is the modest comedown album. After you have your first real big album, or monster hit, depending on the result, this one results in a slight comedown from the prior album. However, the album must have it’s moments to shine, but still provide a solid enough bridge for the band to have continued success on the next album. A classic and a modern example of that are Give ‘Em Enough Rope by the Clash and Neon Bible by Arcade Fire. Both were good, but not outstanding albums, especially when you consider their predecessors. However, both had enough good moments to keep the band’s momentum enough that their subsequent albums, Sandista! And The Suburbs, had their monster numbers. But again, it must be stressed, the album has to have it's moments to shine, have to offer something to keep people coming back for more. This is what Hootie And The Blowfish had to accomplish with their second album.
And, sadly, Hootie fumbled the ball on this one.
This album is bad. Really bad. As in, you couldn't sell a copy of the CD for a dollar at the now defunct FYE stores because they were flooded with it bad. (Speaking of which, you have to argue that this program may or may not have resulted in the downfall of the dedicated music store. It was designed to allow for a healthy market in used, but sellable cd’s. Instead, what they got were mountains of crap that people were embarrassed to own now, or had only bought because of the one song. The result? Mountains and mountains of unsellable stock, with only a few gems to be found amongst the crap. It’s like a nightmarish episode of American Pickers.)
The album itself starts off promisingly enough with the almost angry ballad Be The One. It’s dark, a bit angry, catchy, and would have set the stage for a good album. Sadly, it would be one of the only bright spots of a terrible album. Many of the songs are slow, unimaginative, and don’t have any of the charm that the songs from Cracked Rear View had to it. Gone was the introspective tunes like Time, or the happy pop like Only Wanna Be With You. Instead, you had absolute crap like Tucker’s Town, which was one of the only songs that was passable enough to try and release as a single. The only other tunes that were worthwhile from Fairweather Johnson are The Old Man And Me, which was the first single from the album, and the album’s namesake, which was meant as kind of a in-between song filler, but instead was a sort of testament to the entire album. This album felt unfinished; almost like Hootie pulled every B-side that they may have had in some corner of the studio. Even the Old Man And Me, which is arguably the best track, only resembled a shadow of what was on Cracked Rear View. These are songs that would be released more on a B-Side album to the original, kind of like what Florence And The Machine did with Lungs. It feels more and more like the record company, and perhaps the band themselves, hurriedly pushed it together to finish a sophomore album in order to capitalize on whatever momentum the band may have still had.
And perhaps that is the primary reason why the album may not have done well. 1995 was a vastly different year from 1996. We were beginning to expose ourselves to newer and different music. Gangster Rap was on the rise, and we were now in the middle of the East Coast-West Coast feud. Some of the grunge bands were either reaching some of their biggest heights (like the Smashing Pumpkins) or had died out and were in the process of becoming something new (like David Grohl creating The Foo Fighters from the ashes of Nirvana.) Hootie had helped us from the transition from grunge and the death throws of New Wave, and now we had rebounded to something new. Hootie was the poor rebound fling, and now we had recovered from our emotional ruins to rediscover life again.
With this, combined with poor reviews after the release of the album, and a rising tide of Hootie hate, Fairweather Johnson was doomed. And while it still sold a rather healthy 3 million copies, the band’s fate was sealed. Never again did we ever hear about Hootie And the Blowfish as a mainstream band ever again. They did small tours, and released a couple of albums that did well amongst their small core of fans that remained, and play a concert after the Master’s is finished. But the band’s career was over. So far, the only member of the band that could salvage their career in any form was Darius Rucker, who managed to recreate himself as a country singer.
But Hootie and the Blowfish still remain in our collective hearts and memories. Every once in a while, you’ll hear a song on a dedicated 90’s, or easy listening station. Most of us still have a copy of the album floating around in our now neglected collection of CD’s that are collecting dust in some forgotten part of our closet. Still, the album is still a good album, and still is worth a good listen to. When I make my yearly trip to Albuquerque, I have a four hour stretch of road to look forward to. And, even though I do have satellite radio, I do pop in Cracked Rear View. Much as the transition from place to place, the album still has it’s relevance as a way to mark a journey, much as it did during that brief period between grunge and 90’s pop rock. Hootie came along and gave us something different. And while you may not want to admit it, you did say Thank You. Much as you did to the girl or guy whom you turned to for comfort before you moved on.
