Cracked Rear View

Cracked Rear View is the debut studio album by Hootie & the Blowfish, released on July 5, 1994, by Atlantic Records. Released to positive critical reviews, it eventually sold 10.2 million copies in the United States, becoming one of the best-selling albums of all time. Don Gehman was chosen by A&R man Tim Sommer as a producer because of his previous work with John Mellencamp and R.E.M. Cracked Rear View is Hootie & the Blowfish's most successful album. Cracked Rear View reached number one on the Billboard 200 five times over the course of 1995. It was the best-selling album of 1995 in the United States, selling 7 million copies. It has sold 10.2 million copies in the United States per Nielsen SoundScan as of 2012. An additional three million copies were sold through CD clubs, which are not included in SoundScan's total. The album has been certified 21x platinum (double diamond) as of 2018. It is the joint 19th-best-selling album of all time in the United States. The album also reached number one in Canada and New Zealand. Critical reviews of Cracked Rear View were mostly positive. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine crowned the album as "the success story of 1994/1995." He also stated "Although Hootie & the Blowfish aren't innovative, they deliver the goods, turning out an album of solid, rootsy folk-rock songs that have simple, powerful hooks."