What’ve They Done Lately : Expectations Run High for Hootie & the Blowfish’s Second Album

On “Fairweather Johnson,” the title track of their eagerly awaited new album, Hootie & the Blowfish mock the fickleness of sports fans.

Taking over lead vocals from Darius Rucker in the whimsical, 50-second novelty song, guitarist Mark Bryan sings:

I liked the Steelers in ’75

I only like the Broncos when they come alive

Liked the Redskins in ’83

And when the Dolphins are playing well, yeah well, they’re the team for me.

The subject might be professional football, but the song can also be seen as the Grammy-winning band’s lighthearted jab at its own situation.

“Cracked Rear View,” the group’s 1994 Atlantic Records debut, has been certified by the Recording Industry Assn. of America for sales of more than 13 million copies, leaving it second only to Boston’s self-titled 1976 bow as the biggest-selling debut album of all time. (“Boston” has sold 15 million copies to date, according to the RIAA.)

But will rock music fans be as fickle as sports fans?

Has “Cracked Rear View,” still No. 19 after 90 weeks on the Billboard national sales chart, remained a big seller only because it was perceived as a winner, or will fans of the album stay loyal to the Blowfish when the new collection is released April 23?

“We’re in a strange position,” says the band’s manager, Rusty Harmon. “We set the standard for ourselves for every record from here on out. I’m not going to say I’m not happy to be in this position because I really am. . . . But if this album sold 5 million, some might call it a failure.”

“Failure” is a word that so far has not been associated with Hootie & the Blowfish, whose debut spawned four hit singles--”Hold My Hand,” “Let Her Cry,” “Only Wanna Be With You” and “Time”--and was the nation’s most popular album last year, selling more than 7 million copies in 1995, according to SoundScan.

Atlantic Records executives say they will make an initial shipment of about 1.5 million copies of the new album, although the demand from retailers is so great that they probably could take orders for twice that number. (By contrast, Epic shipped 2 million copies of Michael Jackson’s two-disc “HIStory” album last summer and 3.5 million copies of Pearl Jam’s “Vitalogy” in 1994.)

“We’re trying to be fiscally prudent and responsible,” says Ron Shapiro, senior vice president and general manager of Atlantic Records, “and not just assume that Hootie & the Blowfish are going to sell another 13 million records.”

Atlantic officials, in fact, say they’d be very happy if the new album sold 3 million copies, which would probably place it among the year’s 10 best sellers.

Harmon says he’d like to see it sell between 7 million and 10 million.

Interest in Hootie & the Blowfish has been so high that the buildup surrounding the release of “Fairweather Johnson” has been a publicist’s dream:

* Entertainment Weekly, Musician, People and even Time are among the many magazines planning cover stories or major profiles on the Columbia, S.C.-based quartet, according to Atlantic Records.

* “MTV Unplugged” will showcase the group in an April 22 airing of a concert to be taped April 19 at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. The show, scheduled to air at 10 p.m., will include several reminders that the new album goes on sale at midnight.

(Harmon says the band has no plans to release the “Unplugged” session as an album.)

* “Late Show With David Letterman,” an ardent supporter, will feature the band--Rucker, Bryan, bassist Dean Felber and drummer Jim “Soni” Sonefeld--on the night of the album’s release.

* VH1 will air a documentary on the band April 27 and repeat it throughout Hootie’s 100-date U.S. tour, which kicks off July 8 in Noblesville, Ind., after a five-week European tour.

* Radio response to the album’s first single, “Old Man & Me (When I Get to Heaven),” has been tremendous, with about 350 of the nation’s most highly rated stations adding it to their playlists immediately after its April 1 release.

As testament to the band’s across-the-board appeal, “Old Man & Me” was among the most-added songs of the week in half a dozen formats, ranging from pop to album-oriented rock.

“This is a rare thing--for a record to come out and everyone jump all over it in the same week,” says Cyndee Maxwell, rock editor of the trade publication Radio & Records, which monitors the nation’s leading radio stations. “It’s substantial. It means that this band has a huge audience.”

It’s an audience that, according to the band’s handlers, is hungry for new songs from the group. Some might question the wisdom of releasing “Fairweather Johnson” while “Cracked Rear View” is still hot, but to Atlantic and the band it makes perfect sense.

“People keep forgetting that we released the last record two years ago,” says Val Azzoli, co-chairman and co-CEO of the Atlantic Group. “The first 2 [million] or 3 million copies were sold in ’94 or early ‘95, so to those people it’s been a long time since the last record. Those are the people I’m most concerned about. Those are the people who form this band’s fan base. . . .

“The person who bought the Hootie & the Blowfish record last week is not a hard-core music fan. That person probably buys one or two records a year.”

Of course, the band wouldn’t discourage that person from picking up “Fairweather Johnson.”

“I think the tendency would be for a band to relax after selling 13 million records, but we’re not,” Harmon says. “We’re going to work this record the same way we worked the first record. We’re not assuming that our ship has come in. We’re still going to work as if we’re a newcomer band.”