Ever since The Beatles released the white album, it seems every band feels the need to put out a mid-career self-titled record.
For Hootie & the Blowfish, that time came in 2003. Hootie & the Blowfish was the first album of original material by the band in five years, and the first without producer Don Gehman. Instead, Grammy-winning producer Don Was took the reins and brought more of a pop sheen to the music.
Hootie and the Blowfish followed up their third album with a collection of covers titled Scattered, Smothered and Covered, a name they borrowed from a Waffle House advertisement.
The band rolls through 15 tracks of enjoyable bar rock, mostly covering artists I don’t know, though they do include tracks from R.E.M., The Smiths, Roy Orbison and Led Zeppelin (today’s SOTD, one of the album’s standout tracks).
While I did buy Hootie and the Blowfish’s 1996 sophomore effort, Fairweather Johnson, when it was released, that marked the end of my fandom. Like most of the world, I tuned out after that.
So their third album, 1998’s Musical Chairs, is completely new to me. And that’s a shame, because after a couple of listens, and despite the major hits on their debut, I think this album is better than either of the first two.
Back in 2012, I posted a track from Hootie and the Blowfish’s 1994 smash Cracked Rear View, marveled at the meteoric rise and just-as-quick fall of the band, and suggested that “it’s about time it became cool to like Hootie again.”
I guess I was on to something. The band is currently packing arenas on a reunion tour, and recently the New York Times’ pop music critic Jon Caramanica published a piece titled ‘Hootie & the Blowfish, Great American Rock Band (Yes, Really).’
(I interrupt the normally scheduled Random Weekend for some thoughts on Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Warning: Spoilers follow!)
It’s been a decade since I saw a Quentin Tarantino film I really loved. That was 2009’s Inglourious Basterds, a masterful blend of tension, action and melodrama that burst at the seams with daring creativity. It’s up there with Pulp Fiction as the most Tarantino movie Tarantino has ever made.
In contrast, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — for most of its running time — is the least Tarantino film he’s ever made. It’s also one of the best.
