Album of the Day-May 7
Hootie & the Blowfish — Cracked Rear View
Hootie & the Blowfish — Cracked Rear View
7.May.2020
Hootie & The Blowfish
Cracked Rear View
1994
Haters gonna hate…but fuck it…this is a damn fine record.
In 1994, I was snobbishly ensconced in grunge, and from where I stood, I was the premier purveyor of musical taste — no one’s taste was as good as mine.
A friend had suggested that I to listen this band from South Carolina. I shrugged him off. After a fair amount of cajoling, I snapped it away from him one night at work for the ride home.
Cracked Rear View kicked in with “Hannah Jane” and I was modestly surprised. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great. It wasn’t original but in an era of grunge rock and so much angry sounding music, it was refreshing.
I looked at the back of the jewel box when I got home (it was a short ride) and saw it was produced by Don Gehman. He had produced the 80’s string of John Mellencamp’s biggest (and arguably his best) albums, American Fool, Uh-Huh, Scarecrow and The Lonesome Jubilee. He also produced the pivotal R.E.M. album, Life’s Rich Pageant. Seeing his name, my defensive ears dropped…so did my attitude.
Track two, “Hold My Hand”, begins benignly enough but then quickly grows into the anthem it very soon became. “Okay,” I thought, “I’m interested.”
After “Hold My Hand” came let “Let Her Cry” and then “Only Wanna Be With You”…it’s a one-two-three punch of pure power pop-rock. It’s album sequencing at its best. It’s not just 14:00 of sublime music, it’s bliss.
Frankly, if you’re not hooked after those first three songs, I’d question whether you have a soul…and if you’re not hooked after the first five songs, you don’t.
With over 20 million albums sold, that puts Hootie & The Blowfish and Cracked Rear View somewhere in the top five of best-selling debut albums and in the top fifty of best-selling albums of all time (depending on where you look.)
Seeing a black guy like Darius Rucker front a rock band wasn’t that unusual, it just wasn’t the norm. And looking back now, hell, those were the halcyon days of the 90s. But as you settle in listening to Cracked Rear View you realize the songs eclipse race by addressing universal issues that impact us all like love, relationships, and good times…typical rock and roll fare…until “Drowning”, track 7, arguably the angriest song on the record:
Why must we hate one another
When the people in the church
They tell me you’re my brother
You don’t walk like me, I said that
You don’t talk like me, saying
Go back to Africa
I just don’t understand
It pains me to write that in 2020 those lyrics are not just still relevant, the negative sentiment is growing.
Darius Rucker’s rich baritone is so identifiable, but it’s always been that way. In 1994 Hootie & The Blowfish weren’t “classic rock” so they were on the “alternative rock” station (until they became too big to ignore) so that meant the band was played next to Eddie Vedder, Trent Reznor, Courtney Love, Kurt Cobain, Zack de la La Rocha, et al. So, the vocal stylings of those artists are wildly different and by way of comparison, Rucker stands out.
Interesting nerd note…there is one degree of separation between Hootie & The Blowfish and the Seattle grunge sound. Journalist turned Atlantic Records A&R guy, Tim Sommer, signed Hootie & The Blowfish to Atlantic in 1993.
However, Sommer’s first big A&R score was Seattle’s The Gits, fronted by Mia Zapata. Her tragic murder in 1993, just four days after his handshake deal with the band left the city confused, the scene crippled and Sommer crushed. Read about Sommer’s road to Hootie here (it’s worth it).
The album chugs along and if you’ve made it to track eight, “Time”, you’re invested. “Time” follows “Drowning” and thematically it makes sense (again, that sequencing). It remains my favorite song on the record. It’s taught sound and lyrics have left me gleefully tapping on my steering wheel and singing along more times than I can remember.
The last three songs are not phoned in, but you can tell the energy of the album has been exorcised. “Not Even the Trees”, “Goodbye” and “Motherless Child” help Cracked Rear View glide across the finish line, but by then the album was several furlongs ahead of anyone else. The last few songs do serve as a ballast for the album.
There isn’t anything terribly new or original about Cracked Rear View — but that ain’t a god damn crime. There’s nothing new or original about beat-up jeans, t-shirts and Chuck Taylor’s either. Some things can transcend time and never go out of style.
Hootie & the Blowfish’s Cracked Rear View is one of those things.
Cracked Rear View was a damn fine album then, it’s a damn fine album today and it’ll be a damn fine album in another 25+ years.