Hootie & the Blowfish, Cracked Rear View

America was in a giant, collective fraternity in 1995, because we all loved Hootie & the Blowfish. God, we were such terrible people.

It was a nice story - four nice guys (three nice white guys fronted by one nice black guy) who met at college and played simple songs that sounded like rock but were more like pop (Pop Rocks!).

I went to a Hootie & the Blowfish concert at some ski resort in Vermont when I was in high school. An even more awful band named Dillon Fence opened for them. After one of their songs, when the impatient crowd booed them, I believe their lead singer said, "Fuck you! Fuck you very much!"

When Hootie & the Blowfish performed, they played every song almost exactly as they had recorded it, which I remember thinking was disappointing, which it was, because when a band can barely even trust their members to perform adequate solos, it's not much of a band.

Here's the thing: I like the album. There are several shamefully catchy songs. It's weird that at least three of them seem to be about Darius Rucker's mother's death, because the rest of the album - and Hootie & the Blowfish in general - did not convey much of a mourning vibe. But man, some of these other songs - 'Hold My Hand,' 'Running From an Angel' - are like high school anthems. Put some of these in a mix with, like, 'Lightning Crashes,' and there's a whole swath of the population that will sway and cry and, if drunk, blubber the lyrics in this intense, too-loud sort of way.