On their new album Musical Chairs, Hootie and the Blowfish demonstrate their creative evolution as a musical force by utilizing ONE new chord. It's in the first song on the CD, their new single "I Will Wait." I dunno exactly which chord it is; if I did, maybe I too could make billions of dollars writing shitty pop tunes with less backbone than your average jellyfish. But it's not one of those 1-4-5 major chords that have in the past comprised the entirety of their sonic landscape. It's new, it's kinda bittersweet, and I'll be perfectly honest: it melts my heart a little.

Then again, so did Bill Clinton's tearful televised apology to America, and look at how far we can trust that guy. What does this tell you? It tells you that I'm a sappy fuck, and it tells you that you can't trust your own ears when it comes to bands as moronically deceitful as Hootie and the Blowfish. Don't let the fact that you may like Hootie's new single trick you into buying their new record. In fact, don't let the fact that you like ANY of their music trick you into buying ANY of their records. Just because you like it doesn't mean it's good. Feeding these sorry bastards money is only helping them to continue to produce more radio-friendly piles of shit.

It's a shame, too. Not just because it's indescribably sad how much money is being poured into what is essentially a creative black hole. Not just because it's heartbreaking to see such money wasted, money that could be used to produce albums of true quality, or to feed starving babies, or to buy millions of Little Debbie snack cakes, all of which would be far better uses for it than making another hollow Hootie record. No, it's sad because the new Hootie single has a miniscule spark of truth at its heart, and if you feed that spark with the bittersweet feelings of love and longing that reside in your own heart, you can trick yourself into believing that maybe, just maybe, there is such a thing as a "good" Hootie and the Blowfish song.

But buy the album, and you'll realize within minutes that it's just the same old Hootie. It's as if their true passion lies in making music so mind-numbing that it induces comas. "I Will Wait" launches the record, blowing their full creative wad all over the listener with all the messy eagerness of a fifteen-year-old boy losing his virginity to Jenny McCarthy. Like that fifteen-year-old boy, they're flaccid and useless within seconds of the musical orgasm. By the second song--that's right, within four minutes and twenty seconds of the beginning of Musical Chairs--Hootie sucks once again.

And MAN, do they suck big-time. Check out the listless backing vocals on the chorus to "Wishing," where the boys try to sing fast so that they don't have to sing well. Or the slightly interesting "Las Vegas Nights," which might be a cool song if musically it didn't sound like "I Will Wait," the song that comes two songs before it. Or the faux-intense "blues" riffs of "Bluesy Revolution," a song so vapid that the mere attachment of the word "blues" to its title must have Muddy Waters rolling over in his grave. It's all worthless, it's all lifeless, and it's all Hootie.

So what's their problem? They write boring music with bad lyrics. It's that simple. I do think Darius Rucker is a gifted singer, with a great rock and soul voice. As I've said time and again, it's a true shame that its nuances are wasted on this crap music. They're not a great band in terms of sheer playing skills, but they're competent. What makes them beyond bad-and ironically, what probably makes them so popular-is that their songs sound so much alike, and their lyrics aren't interesting enough to make you not notice. If they wrote boring melodies and great lyrics, then that would be one thing; you'd be so entranced by the cleverness of their words that the blandness of their tunes would whiz right by your brain. Or if they wrote very creative and catchy songs with bad lyrics, you could write the band off as fun, mindless ear candy and be done with it.

Instead, their melodies suck, and their lyrics suck too. Their songs all sound the same. "Hold My Hand" is "Time" is "I Will Wait" is "I Go Blind" is "FILL IN THE BLANK." The chords are the same, and you don't need to be musically trained to hear it. The melodies are simply uninteresting. They don't really grab the ear at all. I really don't think they try hard enough to write melodies. They find these chords that they've used time and again, they strum until they figure out a good combo, and then they throw in whatever melody pops into their brain. They haven't figured out yet that it takes work to write creative melodies time and again, and to avoid sounding the same in every song. Lyrically, perhaps it's best to let them speak for themselves: "Wishing it all away from you/Wishing is all you'll ever do"-sounds like more of an easy rhyme than any meaningful combination of words. "'Cause I'm only lonely on the inside"-what the fuck? Is there any other way to be lonely? Can you be lonely on the outside, where your skin and penis and fingernails need company but your heart's perfectly content? "I'm just so sick of my mind"-boo-fucking-hoo. I've read better one-liners in high-school literary magazines. "You've got to capture me to set me free"-OOOH, how IRONIC. Capture to set free-that's really contradictory. Someone call Alanis Morrisette. There are more, but take my word for it: it's nothing you'd care to read, let alone hear sung on a CD you've just paid sixteen bucks for.

But what do you do with a band that's popular the world over, has sold more records than God, and has NO ABILITY WHATSOEVER? Shoot them? That would be great, but it is illegal, and I certainly can't justify ruining the rest of my life to eliminate perhaps the biggest pus-filled boil ever to rest on the shapely ass of pop music. If you're willing to do it, go ahead, but don't name me as an inspiration, like that psycho Hinckley did with J.D. Salinger when he shot Lennon. I could cut off their hands, but to be perfectly honest, blood makes me a bit queasy. I guess all I can do is to quietly hate them with an abiding passion, decry them loudly with every possible opportunity, and never buy another Hootie CD again.

I can't encourage you enough to do the same. This is one case where you just can't give in to your guilty pleasures and buy a Hootie album. Doing so is no less than a travesty of civic irresponsibility. Hootie and the Blowfish are the most overrated and least talented band in the history of popular music. Their songs are boring, their lyrics suck, and their playing is uninspired. The only ounce of soul in the whole operation comes from Darius Rucker on lead vocals, and that's not nearly enough to make these guys worth listening to. The Blowfish BLOW, and every CD bought is just another ten bucks to feed their windbags.

Hear me now, and believe me forever: Musical Chairs is a musical nightmare.