Music Trivia For Those With No Lives: Hootie's Bad Review Gets Critic Fired

Do you actually think that every good or bad review you read of an album is genuine? We all know that some critics are predisposed to dislike a certain artist, so they are bound to give that artist a bad review. It's hard to be objective so there isn't anything morally offensive about that.

There is something offensive, however, if a record company arranges a good review with a magazine. Such is the case with Hootie and The Blowfish's Fairweather Johnson, which was released in Spring of 1996. The newly hired editor of Rolling Stone magazine, Jim DeRogatis, decided to be rather honest about his review, not realizing that he was going against Rolling Stone's prearanged deal with Atlantic Records. Rolling Stone head Jann Wenner, however, was furious that DeRogatis didn't write the originally planned good review of a band who's previous album had sold more than 10 million copies. Not only was DeRogatis's review replaced with a more favorable one, but the sometimes psychotic (but always fun to read) music critic was instantly shown his way out the door.

Jim DeRogatis was employed again at the Chicago Sun-Times. It appears that his inuition about Fairweather Johnson was correct since not only did the album completely bomb on the charts, but turned the band Hootie and The Blowfish into a complete joke. Rolling Stone Magazine, once the "it" magazine of the music world, has also become a joke.