The 1990s Project: Hootie and the Blowfish’s “Cracked Rear View”
You know, let’s not make this about Hootie. For one thing, as researching this post has informed me, “Hootie” does not refer to frontman Darius Rucker, nor does “Blowfish” refer to his bandmates. It turns out that “Hootie” and “the Blowfish” were a couple of dudes who hung out with these guys back in their collegiate days at the University of South Carolina. Together, the phrase “Hootie and the Blowfish” refers to both those two dudes and to one of the most bro-tastic bands of the 90s.
But like I said, this is not about them. There’s really not much to say about Hootie and the Blowfish as a band. Their album is not awful. You can fairly painlessly make it through, if you try to ignore the lyrics—which is easy to do, since Rucker sings like the See ‘n Say toy that makes farm animal noises that all sound the same.
What this is about is whether you can judge a decade’s music by its lowest common denominator. Cracked Rear View (1994) sold 16 million copies: if you distributed those to the current population of the city of Minneapolis, that would be a two-foot stack of Hootie CDs for every single man, woman, and child. So, you know, much as I’d like to judge the 90s by the amazing Magnetic Fields albums, I think you’ve got to hold the 90s accountable for Hootie too.
Sure, every decade’s got to have their bro bands, their tailgate soundtracks. But let’s think about this. You’re at a Notre Dame game, shotgunning a beer. What are you listening to? If it’s the 70s, maybe Led Zeppelin. The 80s? Bob Seger. The 00s? Nelly. The 90s? (Sigh.) It’s gonna be Hootie. Maybe, if you’re lucky, Garth.
What I’m saying here is that all the Fugazis and Radioheads and PJ Harveys and TLCs and Tupacs and Becks of the 1990s could not prevent Hootie from selling 16 million albums. If you remember 1994, you remember a hell of a lot of Hootie. Can you hold Hootie against the 90s? Maybe you can’t, but I can, and I will.
The 1990s Project is my attempt to give the decade’s music a fair shot at disproving my offhand assessment that the 90s were the armpit of modern musical history. My goal is to visit, or revisit, 100 of the decade’s most acclaimed, popular, and/or interesting albums. Here’s the road map.