Perfect Sound Forever

How to Be A Rock Critic

Hootie

Jim DeRogatis (October 1996)

I left my job as pop music editor at the Chicago Sun-Times to go to ROLLING STONE after years of publicly attacking the mag for sucking because they hired a friend of mine as music editor and because, when I told Mr. Wenner (publisher) to his face how RS sucked, the response was "You're right, we need to change, we need what you do." When I actually got there, it was as if that conversation had happened in a different universe. Eight months of hell followed, toward the end of which I wrote the review that I am including at the end of this missive. Wenner killed it and subbed a positive one. Several weeks later, I got a call from the media columnist of the New York Observer asking about it. I did not comment, but when he asked if Jann was a Hootie fan, I said, "Jann Wenner is a fan of any band that sells eight million records." Ran in bold as a pull quote next to Wenner's picture. I was fired the day it came out.

(ED NOTE: The fact that Hootie's record company buys a lot of ad revenues in RS probably didn't help Jim either)

Lester (Bangs) was fired (from ROLLING STONE) in 1971 for writing a negative review of Canned Heat and "not being respectful enough of musicians," and I figured, "Well, what is Hootie if not the Canned Heat of 1996?"


AMERICAN BLANDSTAND

Fairweather Johnson
Hootie and the Blowfish
(Atlantic)

With SoundScan-certified sales of 8.5 million for its Atlantic debut, Cracked Rear View, the humble South Carolina bar band Hootie and the Blowfish hit that strata of hyper-popularity where people who never buy records bought the record. But whether or not Fairweather Johnson ever meets those chart accomplishments and to date, it ain’t even coming close- it is certainly its predecessor’s artistic equal. Which is to say it’s an album full of what Hootie themselves call "silly little pop songs"- no more, no less.

Tunes such as "Be the One," "Honeyscrew," and "Tucker Town" (which was inspired by a band vacation to Bermuda) don’t vary much from the formula of Hootie hits like "Hold My Hand" and "Only Wanna Be With You." There are insidious hooks aplenty and hints of Stax/Volt soulfulness courtesy of the occasional Hammond organ and Darius Rucker’s pleasingly gruff vocals (think Eddie Vedder imitating Otis Redding). All of the songs overflow with generic jangly guitars that evoke denatured versions of edgier Southern popsters like R.E.M. and the dB’s, whose Peter Holsapple is reduced by the need for health insurance to serving as fifth Hootie on organ, piano, and accordian.

These comfy, cozy sounds- the musical equivalent of Mom’s chocolate chip cookies and a big glass of milk- are paired with lyrics that reek of Hallmark-card sentimentality. "I thought about you for a long, long time/I wrote about you, but the words don’t seem to rhyme/Now you’re lying near/But my heart still beats for you," Rucker sings in the weepy ballad "Tootie." Are these the sweet nothings of a bunch of regular Joes struggling to express their romantic feelings, or the trite cliches of hack songwriters who just wanna get laid? It would be easier to believe the former if the band hadn’t chosen sophomoric sex jokes worthy of Beavis and Butt-head for their last three album titles (Kootchypop, Cracked Rear View, Fairweather Johnson).

To these ears, Hootie are the blandest extreme of a wave of bands for whom blame can be placed squarely on the Grateful Dead. The Spin Doctors, Dave Matthews Band, Blues Traveler, and most of the other "baby Dead" or "jam" bands try to uphold the Dead’s ideals of exploring diverse musical genres such as jazz, bluegrass, and worldbeat from a rock perspective, as well as transcending the everyday through a combination of hallucinogens, music, and community. Hootie doesn’t even attempt the first (though they do stretch things out a bit live), and they only succeed at the second if you consider Bud Lite a psychedelic drug.

But the connection to the Dead is there in a recording style that reduces American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead to their lowest common denominators: a down-home hippie folksiness, a lilting melodic approach, and, of course, that lazy, elastic groove. Hootie music never rocks, and you certainly can’t dance to it; at best, you just sort of do the awkward white-person wiggle so prominent at Dead and baby Dead shows alike. (Remember, too, that David Crosby, the Dead’s secret weapon on American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead, also crafted the harmonies on "Hold My Hand.")

Come hear Uncle Hootie’s band, playing to the crowds. More than 8 million buyers can’t be wrong. Or can they?

(originally written May '96)


Hootie2


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