defend the indefensible: Hall and Oates

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.)

My sense is that a whole lot of people went "Gee that Billy Joel ain't half bad" after the Sandy benefit performance. This immediately made me want to run to the hills.

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?

surely this is solely responsible:

http://pitchfork.com/features/guest-lists/5896-death-cab-for-cutie-my-favorite-ten-songs-by-the-rock-group-hall-oates/

Death Cab for Cutie: My Favorite Ten Songs by the Rock Group Hall & Oates
By Ben Gibbard, Death Cab for Cutie , February 10, 2003

oh did you have to

The disingenuous dbag clinging fast to that irony card

nah it's definitely not the gibbard article (or i hope not, at least). the overall rehab came later throughout the decade. i remember a SPIN (yeah) article called "HALL & OATES: THE '80S VELVET UNDERGROUND?" or something insane when I was in high school, so like '06-'07ish? it was in full swing about a year after that.

Like I said, I've been hearing "I Can Go For That" and a couple others in clubs with "Britpop" nights since 1999 or 2000 at least, so they never went away! Simply Red sampled the former in the early 2000s. Credit/blame twentysomethings writers coming of age and suddenly realizing that the songs their parents played were also getting action during DJ sets.

*I Can't

it was a combination of
stuff like Ariel Pink
the Yacht Rock series giving this vibe/era a name, thus bringing more attention to it as an aesthetic/entity
and
people getting more into balearic/dad rock/etc, all going into creating an atmosphere more friendly towards H&O

You overestimate the cultural influence of Ariel Pink.

nobody outside Pitchfork gives a tinker's damn about Ariel Pink, and certainly not their support, tacit or not, of the biggest duo in American rock history. They're like Billy Joel, Elton John, the Eagles, or whatever -- their songs have never gone away. And you can dance to quite a few of them. And despite the sax solos their eighties stuff is often as austere as Spoon.

re: billy joel, i've a lot of time for him, and his Nylon Curtain album is genuinely excellent from start to finish

yeah, I just meant as far as their hipster reappraisal - and didn't mean to give the credit solely to him, but to that overall yacht-y, beachy thing that developed in the mid-00s and I guess broke through around 2008. as far as H&O having more widespread popularity again - I def don't think most people give a damn - or even know about - Pitchfork, but I wonder if the popularity of that style floating up through the indie world filtered out into pop production (and I'm not necessarily saying indie has that much influence usually, but I have heard a little of that vague indie-yacht sound - the guitar tones and slap bass - in some pop)

xp

So Spin has an article from 1988...

http://books.google.com/books?id=gBfYiTJzzxEC&pg=PA81&dq=hall+%26+oates+spin&hl=en&sa=X&ei=sBrqUIfoBfKy0AHU5IGwBw&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=hall%20%26%20oates%20spin&f=false

They opened for Lou Reed during the Rock and Roll Animal tour!

I do like how Hal acknowledged even then what we know for sure now: 1985 marked the end of their imperial phase, with the Temptations live album the peak of their aspirations.

A good recent performance of Hall's biggest solo hit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41wRUFxQv0A

I have no opinion on the legacy of Hawlin' Oates, however, their hit machine of the early 80s was something (even as a chart-following stooge/youth) was something i couldn't then, and still cannot embrace. Props for a bunch of their earlier output when the were really digging-out a spot for themselves -- but the comparisons to the Everly/Righteous Bros for such drivel as "Private Eye" was unwarranted, and only buoyed by an inept audience of media consumers who, literally, bought-in to their covers of far superior source material (much of which, is a bit derivative as well).

No doubt, the guy can sing; and Hall's affinity for sweet harmonies is always welcome -- but just about everything after (and including) "Kiss On My List" smells far too formulaic for me to be excited about. Personally, i blame the fickle money-grubbing nature of the commercial media that drove these tracks to be slathered over the airwaves, and the empty-headed buying populace that made these mega stars.

The coolest thing i've heard about Hall concerns his interest in preserving 18th Century homes, even to the point of specing out single-pane glass in the windows in lieu of far more efficient modern replacements (his "Live from Darryl's" home is a prime example).

Well, lookie there, i guess i have an opinion after all.

I don't know how "formulaic" is an insult, not when within the bounds of three- and four-minute pop few H&O songs sound the same. How is "Kiss On My List" like "One on One"? How are "Family Man" and "Out of Touch" similar? What about "I Can't Go That"?

Also: "an inept audience of media consumers" -- really?

suspecterrain, a man who has never ever been influenced by the media, nor consumed anything.

he has only consumed expertly

It's not formulaic if you invented the formula and demonstrated its effectiveness time and again in a variety of settings, the results of which are a body of wonderfully hummable and fun-to-listen-to tunes which are delightful to hear some 30 years down the line.

few H&O songs sound the same

Raggett & Keyes -- get your head out of the sand and address the argument, not opine on the person who wrote it, then, go get intimate with yourselves and your old Lionel Ritchie records.

It's not formulaic if you invented the formula

watch out - this guy takes no prisoners!

how the hell wasn't Al Green dropped by his record company?

oh no "product" waaaaaanhh

go get intimate with yourselves and your old Lionel Ritchie records.

hello, it is me i'm looking for

their pedigree demonstrates an existence that has difficulty expanding outside the realm of radio

This isn't just absurd as a premise -- an artist has an obligation to look beyond radio confines? -- but just wrong, as the number of R&B and hip hop acts who've cited H&O's New Wave soul moves in their own work (there's a song called "Billie Jean" you might need to hear).

"formulaic" is not a terribly useful concept when criticising pop music. it seems to miss the point.

yeah I mean if you despise commercialism, radio and formula then a Hall and Oates thread is kind of a lol place to sound off

Ned, is it true you dance on the ceiling?

This thread reeks of "product."

I'm sure Ian McKaye has a LOT to say about Hall and Oates.

"You're Out Of Touch (With The World)"

*steps away to bathroom to get intimate with myself*

...All night long

"Formulaic" is the last word I would use to describe "Delayed Reaction" or "Say It Isn't So." It sounds like you've deemed yourself an expert on this band after becoming familiar with about 8 of their biggest songs. H&O doesn't get nearly enough credit for stretching their influences outside of what was expected... I'm surprised "Crime Pays" hasn't been sampled anywhere in hiphop (as far as I know)... And "Gotta Notta Nerve" is easily the best Devo knock-off I've ever heard.

This is "formulaic"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lagKbNP7SvU

I was gonna cite "Open All Night" but then someone could've said it sounds like Ariel Pink which makes it formulaic.