September is shaping up to be a huge month with artists from Young Jeezy to Metallica to Robin Thicke offering up new releases.
Check the schedule, read Money Mike’s notes on what to expect (Hootie Goes Country?) and see a picture of GW Bush and Tina Turner (a woman who thought she had it bad when Ike stood over her).
It’s all on Music’s front page now, as is our Spin a Hot New Release carousel!
Hootie & The Blowfish were one of those bands that I always wound up buying records from, but couldn’t figure out *why* I bought them. Because, let’s face it, Hootie’s material was pretty forgettable (in an enjoyable bar-band kind of way). A greatest hits album from those guys is generally all you need.
I must admit that I was quite intrigued when I found out that Darius Rucker, the band’s lead singer, was releasing a solo album. I was even more intrigued when I found that he was abandoning Hootie’s generic rock/pop sound to embrace a funkier, more soulful vibe.
The album that resulted, 2002’s “Back To Then”, wasn’t a superb album. Hootie sounded a little at sea sharing mic space with the likes of Lil’ Mo and Snoop Dogg (who will apparently rap on *anyone”‘s album. However, there are a couple of songs on the album that soar enough to make it worth a purchase-especially nowadays, when you can probably find it dirt cheap.
I’d known for a while that there was a video for “Exodus”, the album’s second single and my favorite track on the album by a fairly wide margin. I couldn’t find it anywhere, until the song popped into my head last night and I decided to check (again) on Youtube. Check the video out. You might be surprised at how good the song is.
For the record, I think that’s Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon (AKA Fancy from the Jamie Foxx Show) in the video, and Musiq Soulchild and Kenna (who’s gonna get a spot on his own in this blog soon) sing background vocals. The video, if I’m not mistaken, was shot in South Africa. What a beautiful song. Of course, after this album flopped, darius went back to Hootie and THEN started making shitty Burger King commercials.