Hootie blow off grunge with easy tunes

By Dini S. Djalal

JAKARTA (JP): In the 1996 Rolling Stone Readers' Poll, Hootie and the Blowfish were named second Best Artist of the Year, and their album Cracked Rear View, released in 1994, took third place in the Best Album category. But the same album, and their hit single Only Wanna be with You, topped the magazine's worst album and worst single categories.

Their album sales show little evidence of this love-hate relationship. Cracked Rear View, the biggest-selling debut in the history of Atlantic Records, sold 14 million copies worldwide. Their 1996 follow-up, Fairweather Johnson, has sold two million copies -- a relative let-down but still a big pile of records. Critics may blow off Hootie and the Blowfish as a fluke, but the music-buying masses are proving the cynics wrong.

For now. In America, the year Hootie came on the scene was also the year rock giants R.E.M. and the Red Hot Chili Peppers disappointed, and Alanis Morissette, the Smashing Pumpkins, and Green Day, stormed the charts. So here's the selection for would- be easy listeners: a nasal-voiced femme banale winging about ex- boyfriends, a musically eclectic combo whose epic odes to Seventies goth-rock often obscure their genius, and a blue-haired pseudo-punk trio spewing disposable ditties. It was the year so- called "alternative" angst-happy and bile-friendly bands became chart fixtures. It was not a good year for cheerful middle- America sorts wanting a little jig after a hard day's work.

No surprise, then, that 1995 was also the year of the Dave Matthews Band, whose music is as interesting as its name and whose singer sounds similar to Hootie frontman Darius Rucker. Confronted by increasingly gloomy pop stars, the record-buying public couldn't get enough of Dave and Darius' easy melodies.

But easy is as easy does, and there's a fine line between easy listening and easily forgotten. South Carolina natives Hootie and the Blowfish are good at what they do, but what they do is bland, barn-dance rock. This became particularly apparent during their concert on Wednesday at the Hard Rock Cafe. Playing to a packed audience of college-bar sentimentalists (Rob Lowe from St. Elmo's Fire anyone?), for two hours Hootie and the Blowfish hijacked the beer-swigging crowd through an exhaustive repertoire of congenial monotony. The band must have been harking for the good ole days of smoky bars and hecklers, because they would not get off the stage.

Rock-lite

Initially, the performance was promising -- folkish rock-lite spiced with Nashville twang. The wistful lyrics, pretty jingle- jangle, hand-clapping melodies accompanied by the sweet lilt of mandolins, will hush you to a lull.

What's wrong with that, some might say. Nothing really, particularly if your idea of a good time is swaying your arm side to side holding a lit lighter. Hootie songs are like breezy soundtracks to high school proms, which personally, beguile only as long as adolescent daydreams.

And just as teenage memories flash and go, Hootie songs are similarly patchy. Unfamiliar with the set aside from the hits Hold My Hand, Only Wanna be with You and I Go Blind, I wandered through the happy crowd asking the songs' names. Nobody knew, few cared. They also didn't care that the band sat immobile onstage necking down one Budweiser after another and repeatedly reminded the audience that they don't do the Macarena (who cares?). Then singer Darius Rucker announced, "You guys are the only people who have the chance to see us this intimately," referring to the cafe's small capacity compared to the stadiums they can now command. The fans glossed over the conceit and hollered as the band rolled into another indistinguishable song.

This sly arrogance shadowed their finer moments. The first version of Let Her Cry showcased the band's musical dexterity, starting slow and then breaking into a honky-tonk blare. The instrumental interludes of latin-flavored percussions and bluesy drum rolls were also fun, lightening the impression that Hootie and the Blowfish are no more than a good cover band.

Which they are. When bassist Dean Felber took over the vocals and launched into a mediocre version of Midnight Special, the years Hootie spent playing fraternity parties and college pubs surfaced like, well, dead fish. Bereft of Darius Rucker's voluminous gravelly baritone, Hootie and the Blowfish became like any other Wednesday-night post-pizza diversion, best drowned over beers and cigarettes.

And their covers aren't flawless either. Their rendition of Bob Marley's Stir It Up lost the original's sweet musing charm. Unlike Marley, Hootie and the Blowfish are neither sweet nor with a hint of menace: they're safe, dull, familiar, like a pair of old socks. This has likely contributed to their popularity. The crotch-scratching average Joe probably feels more comfortable buying the nondescript Hootie image rather than that of fashion- conscious pretty-boy combos.

The band members themselves are proud of their ordinariness. In an interview with Rolling Stone, drummer Jim Sonefeld said, in rock & roll's universe of the outrageous, Hootie was "breaking ground by being normal".

Yet Hootie and the Blowfish are not completely normal. Sure, they play golf and are outfitted by the Gap, but not everyday does a black singer front three white musicians. Other black artists have gone beyond soul-music confines and embraced the rock arena -- Jimi Hendrix, Lenny Kravitz, Living Colour and Ben Harper among them -- but none have seen the mainstream acceptance Rucker has received.

But when asked whether race is an issue in their success, Rucker threw out notions of "black" versus "white" music. "We all play the same chords. I don't agree with the terms black and white music," Rucker told The Jakarta Post. Rucker added that his color may have hurt their sales, noting the long history of racism in the U.S. Yet Rucker conceded that it is the reverse with the black community, which has embraced their albums. Voicing the band's yearning for recognition from their musical peers, Rucker said: "We get more respect from the rap community than from the rock community".