Songoftheday 6/17/21 - Aboard his ship he stops to stare needs to smell her touch her hair, says "I can't be without her"...
"I Will Wait" - Hootie & The Blowfish
from the album Musical Chairs (1998)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: ineligible to chart
Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #18 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Airplay Top-40: 10
Today's song of the day comes from the South Carolina rock band Hootie & The Blowfish, who we last saw with their top-20 pop radio hit from the end of 1996, "I Go Blind" from the Friends soundtrack. Two years later, Darius Rucker, Mark Bryan, Dean Felber, and Jim Sonefeld returned with their third full-length album Musical Chairs. The first single from the set was the uptempo ode to patience "I Will Wait". Written by the band and produced by Don Gehman, the song is an allegory of life on the road and the loved ones left behind to wait. The music video takes it a step farther, exchanging the sailor's life (which itself substituted for the touring musician life) for the military life, and with a daring for its time biracial relationship portrayed actually elevates the song more than what it was...
Since "I Will Wait" wasn't released as a retail single in America, it wasn't able to place on Billboard magazine's official Hot 100 pop chart. However the track got enough mainstream radio spins to make it to the top-20 of the airplay component of that tally in September of 1998. The song spent a week at #3 on Billboard's older-skewing Adult Top-40 format, and made it on to their Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening" radio chart at #28. It did the best at Triple-A Rock (Adult Album Alternative), where it made the top ten at #8. Internationally, the single rose all the way to #7 on the Canadian pop chart, and was a minor hit in the UK at #57. The Musical Chairs album, released in September as the song was cresting on the radio, topped out at #4 on the Billboard 200 sales chart, going on to move over a million copies.
Despite the decent reception for the album (though not even close to the scale of their debut), mainstream radio didn't catch on with the rest of the set. Second single "Only Lonely", a much more nuanced ballad, missed the Hot 100 chart (and its airplay counterpart) altogether, although it did place on the Adult Contemporary (#25) and Adult Top-40 (#29) lists.
Except for a rarities and covers collection, the Blowfish didn't reemerge with a new studio album until 2003's eponymous fourth set. Lead single "Innocence" failed to make the pop Hot 100, but again showed up on Billboard's Adult Top-40 (#24) and Adult Contemporary (#25) charts. With the record missing the top-40 on the Billboard 200 at #46, their tenure with Atlantic was ending, with a Best Of released in 2004 that included a cover of the 70's soft-rock gem "Goodbye Girl" that went to #24 on the Adult Contemporary list.
The band moved to Vanguard Records under the Sneaky Long imprint, where their put out one more album in 2005, Looking For Lucky, which again stopped just short of the Billboard 200 top-40 at #47. First single "One Love" was a decent hit at easy listening radio, peaking at #5 on the Adult Contemporary chart and #20 on the Adult Top-40 tally. Follow-up "Get Out Of My Mind" rose to #17 on the AC list, their most recent hit at that format. But it seems they evolved too much for the infantile wants of "pop" radio, and the group went on a break in 2008. Rucker switched gears and changed his direction, releasing country music becoming one of the biggest black performers in the genre of all time, and he'll show up himself on this series a handful of times.
Hootie & The Blowfish reunited in 2019 for a country-skewed album of their own, Imperfect Circle, which walked the line between contemporary pop/country and their bar-band rock roots. From the set "Hold On" went to #30 on the Country Airplay chart.
(5/10)
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and lastly, at Farm Aid that same year...
Up tomorrow: Australian actress turned singer has some FOMO.
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