These two songs in a head to head contest seems like an unfair match up.

“Hold My Hold” by Lady Gaga is the acclaimed artist’s return to writing and producing original music for a film, following the success of her work on A Star is Born, which won Gaga an Oscar, two Grammys, and a slew of other awards. And Gaga’s “Hold My Hand” is not just a song for any movie. It was written and recorded specifically for Top Gun: Maverick, the Oscar-nominated, mega blockbuster sequel to a beloved military propaganda film from the 1980’s, which has already grossed nearly 1 and a half billion dollars, making it the highest-grossing film of Tom Cruise’s already extremely high-grossing career.

Conversely, “Hold My Hand”, the 1994 song by Hootie & the Blowfish, is a song that would probably get you roasted by your buddies if you added it to a playlist. “Hold My Hand” represents the beginning of the sort of post-grunge radio friendly college rock that led to Dave Matthews Band, Matchbox 20, and Sister Hazel. It’s cargo shorts music. It’s a song that has become less and less cool since the moment it became a pop hit. And if that isn’t enough, Hootie & the Blowfish also has one of the worst band names of all time.

Gaga’s anthemic power ballad — the spiritual successor to Berlin’s mega hit “Take My Breath Away” from the original Top Gun — is tight, polished, and carefully arranged, where as Hootie’s song is loose, ramshackle, and (ugh) jangly. Hootie sounds amateur by comparison. As I listened to both songs (Hootie’s for the first time in years, and Gaga’s for the first time ever), the Fame Monster herself was in the lead for my favorite. Upon a re-listen to both tunes, I realized not just the songs’ differences, but their similarities too.

For one, both tracks lack any edge whatsoever. By that I mean both songs are completely safe and inoffensive, lyrically and musically. (Though Darius Rucker did consider his “Hold My Hand” to be a protest song about interracial love to racist Southerners, but his white bandmate who wrote the song probably didn’t feel that way.) Structurally, they’re also incredibly simple. Perfect for listening to on the radio with your Protestant parents nearby, or to learn as your first song on guitar. Gaga’s chorus even employs the famous I-V-vi-IV chord progression, which has been used by hundreds of other (and frankly better) pop, rock, and folk songs. It’s so common, in fact, that it has its own Wikipedia page, and Australian comedy group The Axis of Awesome’s video honoring/mocking the commonality of the chord progression has over 80 million views.

After listening a third time to both “Hold My Hand”’s, I realized something I didn’t expect: I was looking forward to hearing the Hootie song again. Gaga’s was kind of boring me. Not that her song is bad, but it was losing steam for me. Song to song, I was feeling like Hootie’s was catchier, but I thought I should see how Gaga’s song fit into the film it was made for. Maybe that would boost my feelings for it. So I watched Top Gun: Maverick for the first time, using a Paramount Plus free trial, as I was the last man in America to see it.

Unfortunately, the song is mostly used in the scenes where Tom Cruise’s “Maverick” and Jennifer Connelly’s “Penny” are rekindling their relationship, which is by far the least compelling (and least realistic) aspect of the entire movie. Even the scored version of the song, enhanced by Hans Zimmer, couldn’t make me care about the shoehorned romance.

Still, it seems like there’s really no competition as to the better song, at least on paper. But, history tells us it’s never wise to bet against Darius Rucker, who of course is the baritone voice of Hootie & the Blowfish.

Hootie’s “Hold My Hand” is not a cool song, but there’s no denying that it was and still is an ear worm. Lest we forget that the song was one of the big hits from Hootie’s smash debut album, Cracked Rear View, which was the top selling album of 1995. It sold 7 million copies the year it came out, and has now sold over 10 million, making it one of the best selling albums of all time. These numbers might make you think that the band’s success was inevitable, but really it is sort of a miracle we know them at all. Because beyond having that terrible, terrible band name, they had a lot working against them.

Hootie & the Blowfish formed in the South during mid 80’s as a cover band with a black lead singer, playing  folk rock at colleges. And this is at the same time when basically all successful rock music is doing the opposite: it’s heavy, it’s angry, and more and more, it’s from Seattle. Somehow Hootie gets popular enough to release an EP, which they give the unfortunate title Kootchypop (yes, that is a strange, bad vagina joke). After selling around 50,000 copies of their terribly named EP, Rucker & company were signed to Atlantic, where one of the record execs called their debut LP “unreleasable.” And at first the album was barely released. Almost no one heard Hootie’s singles. As fate would have it, David Letterman heard “Hold My Hand” on Z100 in New York City (the only time the radio station had ever played it) and liked it so much he had them play on The Late Show three days later. The Letterman Bump got the ball rolling and they’d go on to be one of the biggest band of the 90’s, even though much hipper rockers like Trent Reznor would be quoted as saying “Death to Hootie & the Blowfish.”

A couple Grammys and roughly 25 million albums sold later, everyone seemed to realize how lame Hootie & the Blowfish had always been, and the hits stopped coming. Then Darius Rucker did the truly unthinkable: he became the first commercially successful black country star since Charley Pride, and the first solo black artist to score no. 1 songs on the Hot Country charts since 1983. He even became the third black performer ever to be inducted into the Grand Ole Opry. And while we don’t have time to get into the Country Music Industry’s history of failing to embrace the music of non-white performers, it should still be clear that what Rucker has accomplished is not common.

In 2023, the “Blowfish band” vs Gaga feels like David vs Goliath. But of course, like David, Darius Rucker is always defying the odds and coming out on top. And once again, even in this strange matchup for an article neither artist will probably ever see, I think the win goes to Rucker’s group. Not only is it somehow simultaneously the uncool underdog pick and the undeniable bop we’ll still know another thirty years from now, but it is simply the catchier, more fun song.

Gaga’s tribute to power ballads isn’t bad by any means, but it isn’t even close to being one of her best songs or one of the better power ballads out there. It sounds emotionally powerful, but in a way that is kind of manufactured and soulless. It’s almost as if it was designed by a musical algorithm with the expressed purpose of tricking you into caring about a relationship with no chemistry whatsoever. Hootie’s “Hold My Hand” is kinda lame, but it has heart and soul, and is absolutely sincere. It may not make you pump your fist, but you’re absolutely going to sing along if someone does it at karaoke, and you’ll love all four minutes and eighteen seconds of it.

Gaga may be one of the greatest in pop, but don’t bet against Darius Rucker.

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