HOOTIE & THE BLOWFISH
Musical Chairs (Atlantic)
Rating: 7 out of 7
By Jim DeRogatis

   Aside from the fact that the fourth album by South Carolina’s favorite sons breaks the string of wonderfully witty titles based on sophisticated double entendres (Kootchypop, Cracked Rear View, and Fairweather Johnson), Musical Chairs is a masterpiece of modern popular music. Rarely have such seemingly simple songs been delivered with such subtle soulfulness—-a depth of spirit that could easily be missed entirely, so low-key and laid-back is it in these depressing days of superficial obviousness.
   Mid-tempo, toe-tapping, catchy, endearing, jangly, genial, folkie-—these only seem like the adjectives of equivocation. But who needs the propulsion and pretension that R.E.M. brings to this sound in its hipper version? Why write a sonnet when a Hallmark card will do?
   Two of the great musical forces of our time unite on "I Will Wait," "Desert Mountain Showdown," and "What Do You Want From Me Now?" as violinist Boyd Tinsley and saxophonist Leroi Moore of the Dave Matthews Band lend their talents to the Blowfish. Elsewhere, there’s a subtle turn toward Eagles country; Hootie is the Don Henley of a new day, only better. Henley would have made a tiresome social critique of the first single "I Will Wait," the sad tale of a lonely sailor’s wife. Soul man Darius Rucker only flirts with simplistic sentimentality when he sings, "She was left behind so they could stay/God to feel him, this she prays/It would make her feel so much better."
   No, there is nothing vanilla about Musical Chairs. When has the steamy passion of true love been expressed in terms like, "Hello again/Your words they make me smile/As I drift away/In my little room upstairs"? Is it a surprise to hear that this second single "Only Lonely" was written for a Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan romance?
   Hot. Red hot. Is there any other way to describe the magical musical phenomenon that is Hootie & the Blowfish? Comparison to the greatest names in popular music-—your Beatles, your Bee Gees, your Crosby, Stills & Nashes—-even these seem to fall unjustly flat. No, we must reach beyond, to the pantheon of the greatest poets and sages of human endeavor: to the Robert Frosts, the Walt Whitmans, the Shakespeares. Hootie, ladies and gentleman, is not merely a sweet gift to a cynical time, a warm caress on a chilly evening, a glass of milk and a plate of oatmeal cookies. Hootie, ladies and gentleman, is Art.
   Or maybe not....