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The success of Cracked Rear View was credited to five main reasons--good timing, great music, and marketing, marketing, marketing. The strategy also depended to a great degree on VH1. Around the time the album was released, the cable channel, which had been an MTV-lite for aging baby boomers, was undergoing a format change to capture younger viewers. Hootie, Blues Traveler, Melissa Etheridge and others were adopted as the reformatted channel's signature acts, and all received loads of album-moving airplay. Later, after Cracked Rear View sold its first million or so copies, Atlantic decided to focus on Middle America, to target folks too square for VH1 and definitely not hip enough for MTV. Joint TV ads were taken out with K Mart and Wal-Mart; and ads even appeared on the Country Television Network--the station wasn't playing Hootie, but Atlantic figured the channel's audience might be interested anyway. Within 11 months of its release, the album's sales topped 3 million, and it was on its way. Today, almost two years after its release, the album is still in the top 20 on Billboard's charts.
The music, however, remains the biggest factor in Hootie's rise. Cracked Rear View featured 11 strong, tuneful songs, with brawny guitar work, commanding percussion and Rucker's low, gruff, charismatic voice, which made it all come together. And despite the ebullient sound of the music, some songs were lyrically downbeat. Let Her Cry was about a love affair torn apart by drugs and alcohol; Not Even the Trees was a tribute to Rucker's late mother. Another song, Drowning, decries the flying of the Confederate flag above the South Carolina statehouse. Rucker has received death threats for singing it.
Offstage too the band has shown a conscience. The group does plenty of charity work, and refuses to play golf at country clubs that don't have black members (not a huge sacrifice, but a notable one). Last year the group was drawn into controversy when it was nominated for the Order of the Palmetto, South Carolina's highest civilian honor. Critics were quick to attack the nomination, charging that the band members weren't proper role models. After all, they argued, Rucker's ex-girlfriend had had a daughter by him out of wedlock (the baby is now a year old). Others were angry over the band's Confederate-flag stance. The group withdrew from consideration for the honor.
Fairweather Johnson faces a huge challenge in trying to follow up the success of Cracked Rear View. History has not always been kind to pop-culture sequels--just look at The Two Jakes and everything Michael Jackson has done after Thriller. Still, Fairweather Johnson is a more complex, more nuanced album than Cracked Rear View, although, it should be pointed out, greater subtlety is not something that necessarily translates into greater sales. The CD starts with a rush--a ragged, propulsive song called Be the One--before going into a trio of engagingly sweet-sounding songs, Sad Caper, Tucker's Town and She Crawls Away. Hootie's core sound hasn't changed a whole lot; this isn't their Sgt. Pepper's. But the lyrics are more enigmatic, and the songs have ebb and flow instead of the straight-ahead sonic attack that characterized Cracked Rear View. When I'm Lonely, the last song on Fairweather Johnson, is pure, classic pop--wistful, mature and well crafted. Rucker's voice has never sounded better.