YMMV / Hootie & the Blowfish

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Is the titular old man in "Old Man and Me" simply unloading on the young man about how terrible his life has been, or is he doing so in order to make the young man (who is going off to war himself) feel better about how comparatively easy his life has been?
• And You Thought It Would Fail: Tim Sommer, the A&R man who signed them to Atlantic Records, tells the story of the skepticism he and the band faced in this article. Short version: at the height of the grunge era, virtually nobody in the record industry was interested in a band like Hootie & the Blowfish, and the head of A&R at Atlantic even described Cracked Rear View as "unreleasable" and lacking singles when he first heard it. An interesting anecdote that Sommer relays is that, before leaving for South Carolina to meet Hootie and see them perform, he took a look at the Billboard charts and noticed that Bob Seger's Greatest Hits Album was sitting in the Top 10^note He probably misremembered exactly which artist's album it was; he describes making the trip to sign Hootie in August of 1993, but Bob Seger's Greatest Hits came out on October 25, 1994, three months after Cracked Rear View. However, Rod Stewart's unplugged album did make it into the Top 10 in August 1993, as did Aerosmith's Get a Grip, while Billy Joel's River of Dreams debuted at #1 towards the end of the month. — to him, a sign that the major labels had gotten so obsessed with finding the next Nirvana that they were ignoring a vast market of rock fans who didn't want another Nirvana.
• First Installment Wins: Cracked Rear View was such a success, not only did it instantly make the group stars, but made all of their other albums (which are good) look bad by comparison.
• Funny Moments: This part in "Let Her Cry":
  So I sat back down, and had a beer, and felt sorry for myself!
• I Am Not Hootie: Darius Rucker is often mistaken as being nicknamed "Hootie" and his bandmates as "the Blowfish". The band's name is in fact an inside joke that refers to the nicknames of two of their friends.
• Older Than They Think: "Only Wanna Be with You" was on their debut EP Kootchypop in 1993, "Time" and "Let Her Cry" were first recorded in 1991, and "Hold My Hand" was first recorded in 1990 and self-released on cassette that same year, and was also re-recorded for Kootchypop. All these earlier versions have been remastered and are on the 25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Cracked Rear View.
• Signature Song: Multiple:
  • "Hold My Hand"
  • "Let Her Cry"
  • "Only Wanna Be with You"
• Sophomore Slump: Fairweather Johnson is one of the more notable examples in music. Cracked Rear View got 4 major hits, Fairweather Johnson produced only one. From that point onward, their hits were relegated to AC. And if chart success wasn't a big enough difference, the sales should clear it up. Fairweather Johnson's 3 times platinum would be damn good for any other band. But with a debut album like Cracked Rear View, which went 21 times platinum and is still the 19th best-selling album of all time in the US, it's a shocking drop in sales.

---