defend the indefensible: Hall and Oates

For the record, the gorgeous "Las Vegas Turnaround" and "Had I Know You Better Then" are John Oates compositions.

These guys are so great because you can find all their albums for a buck each, they have tons of them, and every one of them that I've dug through (so far) has at least a pretty-good ratio of memorable, well-performed songs to aimless duds. I've been finally chewing on Voices lately and, god, I just can't stop listening to "Diddy Doo Wop" in the same way that I couldn't stop listening to "Head Above Water" when I got Private Eyes. Great great great stuff.

"Gotta Lotta Nerve (Perfect, Perfect)"! "Big Kids"!

How Daryl Hall Became Cool Again; Or, How Glossy Magazines Started Paying Attention Again.

don't worry, we thought he was cool before everyone else did

Hall and Oates were always dope.

The end of the Hall & Oates era came in a hotel bathroom in 1990 in Tokyo, where they had just performed at a Yoko Ono–sponsored concert commemorating the death of John Lennon. There, in a sad, reflective moment, John Oates said good-bye—to the mustache.

“It really was a kind of spiritual moment for me,” Oates says, laughing. “The mustache represented a me I no longer was. I shaved it off and never looked back.” The next day, he and Hall were waiting at the Tokyo airport for a flight back to the States when Miles Davis appeared. “He came up to me with those red eyes of his,” says Oates. “He got like three inches from my face and kinda drew his finger across his own upper lip, as if he was shaving, and he said to me [in a deep, raspy voice], ‘Now the lovin’s gonna be better.’ ”

oh my god at miles davis

There was a period where people cut down Hall and Oates as if they were Air Supply, but how long ago was that? "Maneater" was street just like "Beat It" and "Billie Jean". And they were put a song with the word "bitch" in it on the radio!

According to Daryl Hall, when Jackson was recording “We Are the World”, Jackson approached him and admitted to lifting the bass line for "Billie Jean" from a Hall and Oates song, apparently referring to "I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)". Hall says that he told Jackson that he had stolen the bass line as well.

Really though, what sort of lyric is "She needs a place she can lounge and wear gowns in."

A genius one, that's for sure.

PFM posted Ben Gibbard's H&O piece. It's stupid.

That Miles quote cracks me up.

Yeah, the Gibbard thing veers close to genuine fannish excitement in places but he's at such pains to describe the band's output as absurd and ridiculous that you wonder why he bothered at all. Doesn't seem much of a step above the "name-checking for cred" thing that he dismisses at the start.

"Italian Girls"This is a rare appearance of John Oates on lead vocals. A quick perusing of the liner notes indicates that Oates penned this tune without the assistance of Daryl Hall or any of the other songwriters the duo had been known to collaborate with. And you can tell. The ethnically tinged lyrics (ex., "I see Sophia on the silver screen-a" ) hit a level of offensiveness rivaled only by Genesis' "Illegal Alien"

I guess "offensive" means something else in Gibbardsville.

jesus. so that's the nudnik who gets to put it in zooey d?

btw, John Oates had a lot more lead vocal bits in the 70s, so calling "Italian Girls" a rare occurrence just makes me think Gibbard is more of a doofus than I already did.

Yeah! The most persistent misconception is Oates' redundancy when he in fact wrote many songs alone, cowrote most of their hits, and played better guitar than Hall.

okay I don't need to read that article, the picture at the top pretty much says everything

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-zn-CuBD6U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GAqzcMevgg

this is weird, "I Can't Go For That" was just playing on my PC when i clicked on this thread

man, cee-lo is an embarassingly bad singer, bad choice to put him in a place where he'll be compared to daryl fuckin hall. Probably true of anybody that appears on this...podcast? What a weird idea for a series.

Really? I thought he sounded pretty good. Anyway, the series make sense to me, but I think the informal muso jam session works here in general (maybe because it's actually pretty structured). It's not just various people doing H&O covers with Daryl Hall. Anyway, I was impressed with the Company of Thieves episode.

Also, Daryl Hall still sounds good, but he still doesn't sound like the Daryl Hall of the 70s and 80s. It's not like putting peak era Hall next to other singers.

yeah this is a tight version, especially rhythimically

as sick as i am of Cee-Lo these days i don't really see how anyone can call him a "bad singer"

this is wonderful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5B6lJPa1Wc&feature=related

Ehhh, I guess maybe I overstated it, more "he annoys me" than "he is bad," but Hall is one of my favorite singers in the game so I'm sorta biased on that side too.

holy shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDFaUVCaUuI&feature=related

Mannnnnnnnnnnn, that guy can sing. I was a little disappointed it wasn't a Blink-182 or Bjork oover but that faded fast.

Last year's solo album was a genuine surprise, and, yeah, the bastard can still sing.

Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes >>>>> Bjork-182

lmao @ 'bjork-182'

it's a collab that needs to happen

ol' Darryl shoulda got Beans to spit his verse from "This Can't Be Life" there, speaking of collabs that need to happen

http://dinerhotline.wordpress.com/2010/08/14/the-story-of-the-the-abandoned-luncheonette-aka-the-rosedale-diner/

^second part of this is a great read, but first part is worth reading for context

What a great story! Thanks Rev.

Fantastic find, Rev. Will be sharing that one out!

can anyone tell me who the first musicians to come out and namecheck hall and oates as favorites were, in terms of rehabilitating their image with the general public? i kind of feel like that will happen too with billy joel if it hasn't already, but he comes across as such a sad sack i am guessing it will take alot longer (and his music doesn't have any "urban" cred which H&O always did)

the general public never thought H&O needed rehabilitation. It was kids whose parents bought H&O records and later started writing music reviews and going dancing who realized that "I Can't Go For That" and "Out of Touch" and at least a half dozen other singles were marvelous. No rehab necessary.

and they have never left R&B and adult R&B stations.

yeah, that was imprecise of me, i guess i meant indie types who i am imagining ridiculed them as 80s dreck, and now they are "hip" "again"....put another way, did any big time indie musicians come out as fans starting, maybe, 10-15 years ago?

Too tired to write all the necessary qualifications but Fun Lovin Criminals come to mind

maybe an outgrowth of those yacht rock videos

I wonder if the H&O as punchline thing was entirely from the cheesy videos

re: billy joel, i was listening to him in the car a while ago and had a sacrilegious moment where i thought "maybe this guy ain't so bad, he writes catchy songs." and i've heard a quiet murmuring of joel reappraisal recently. maybe his moment of being appreciated by the People Who Really Matter (ie, not corny ass suburban lame-o's) is dawning.

but the corney-ass suburban lame-o's have for thirty years been responsible for H&O's royalties!

definitely, spectrum, joel's stock is on the rise

I like them, if only in an American Psycho / sterile yuppie kinda way. I mean, "Rich Girl" is a great song, no?
— Bob Marley

In Philadelphia Hall & Oates is in the tap water. (That's not what gives it that funny taste though.)