Hootie & the Blowfish

As we all sang along, or sipped Cuervo margarita mix, or drummed on our steering wheels, "Hold My Hand" launched a cultural phenomenon: it transformed a good-time South Carolina bar band into the most popular act in America, made "Hootie" a household name, and created an innocuous accompaniment to the cuddly multicultural optimism of the early Clinton years. The rootsy pop singles of this record owned FM radio, spawned two other colossal hits -- "Let Her Cry" and "Only Wanna Be With You" -- and eased mainstream America out of their flannels and into the gently alternative adult 'hood.

Dominating this hugely appealing major-label debut, Darius Rucker's voice is a thrilling
discovery: Big and bluesy, it's a force of nature. The South Carolina band, together since
1989, lends an unapologetically love and peace worldview (their hit "Hold My Hand"
updates the sentiments of the Youngbloods' "Get Together") to fat, folk-derived,
group-written guitar rock; their absolute lack of irony is as refreshing as their si... More >

Even when they split the difference between jangle and boogie, bands given to blunt popcraft and elementary guitars generally favor singers up toward the whiny end of the dramatic spectrum. So Darius Rucker's gruff grit adds an extra layer of substance to a music already deeply comforting in its formal certainties. As a black man who takes his vocal cues from what Gregg Allman made of blues and soul, not to mention a black man embraced as eagerly as Carl McCall by white people loath to think of themselves as "prejudiced," he's significant, with "Drowning" one more hit about racism than Tupac or Dr. Dre has bothered with. But since both patterns can be traced to late minstrelsy--by which I mean not the whiteskin brainwash of perfervid radical rhetoric, merely the twisted roots of American pop--he's hardly unprecedented. And whatever his significance, a cornball is a cornball is a cornball. (Grade - B)