The #82 Album of All-Time in the Rock Era--"Cracked Rear View" by Hootie & the Blowfish

We began the Top 100 Albums on May 1 and here we are up to #82.

Cracked Rear View was the debut by Hootie & the Blowfish. The album dominated the music scene in 1995, selling an incredible 10.5 million copies that year alone! This is reflected in the incredible chart performance of the album. Not only was it #1 for 8 weeks; it was also #2 for 8 weeks and #3 for an additional 12 weeks. That's 28 weeks as one of the top three albums. Cracked Rear View went on to remain in the Top Ten for 55 weeks and remain on the chart for 129 weeks. The album has now reached 16 million copies; the only downside is that it has a particularly low Track Rating of 8.46. In other words, the hits you know are great but there isn't much else on the album.



Four singles generated huge airplay for this release, let by the monster hit "Hold My Hand".  "Let Her Cry", "Only Wanna' Be With You" and "Time" were the other hits from Cracked Rear View.







Hootie & the Blowfish received a Grammy Award for Best Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocal for "Let Her Cry".

All songs written by Mark Bryan, Dean Felber, Darius Rucker and Jim "Soni"Sonefeld.


1.    "Hannah Jane" --3:33
2.    "Hold My Hand" --4:15
3.    "Let Her Cry" -- 5:08
4.    "Only Wanna' Be with You" --3:46
5.    "Running from an Angel" – 3:37
6.    "I'm Goin' Home" – 4:11
7.    "Drowning" – 5:01
8.    "Time" – 4:53
9.    "Look Away" – 2:38
10.  "Not Even the Trees" – 4:37
11.  "Goodbye" – 4:05

Hootie & the Blowfish were:  Darius Rucker, lead vocals, acoustic guitar and percussion, Mark Bryan played mandolin, piano, electric guitar, acoustic guitar and percussion, Den Felber played bass guitar, clavinet and piano and Jim Sonefeld played drums, percussion, piano and glasses!  They got a lot out of each group member.  David Crosby was a backup vocalist on "Hold My Hand", while Lili Haydn played violin and John Nau contributed piano and Hammond organ work on the album.

Don Gehman was largely responsible for the sound you hear on Cracked Rear View--he was the producer, engineer and the mixer for the album.  Eddy Schreyer mastered it while Jean Cronin was the Art Director and Michael McLaughlin was the Photographer.

Hootie & the Blowfish recorded Cracked Rear View in 1994 at N.R.G. Recording Services in North Hollywood, California.  It was released July 5, 1995 on Atlantic Records.

Cracked Rear View is next, at #82.