Best Hall & Oates Album

(Oh wait, I still have H20 too I guess -- "Italian Girls"! -- but who cares about that one.)

"It's a Laugh" should be on every comp assembled by every artist.

Only 2 votes for War Babies? Please.

Rundgren on a roll...

eh, who's going to the Hall & Oates Home For Christmas tour?

Now wouldn't you know it was Bigger Than The Both Of Us which killed me to the core and Ooh Yeah! which made me wanna die it was so bad?

Everything I craved out of the '77-'78 albums, I get from '76's Bigger Than The Both Of Us. That song at the end, especially, what is that crazy synthesizer shit they do at the end? "Falling" oh god yeah that kills me. That whole song kills me. But all the same I applaud their efforts on the last song on Abandoned Luncheonette when they just went all out FUNK...

It's called "Everytime I Look At You" but it still isn't as good as half of Bigger Than The Both Of Us, though it tries.

;_;

1975 Daryl Hall & John Oates 1

I really need to hear oooh yeah!

I tried a little of their first album Whole Oats last night. It sounded pretty cool. Today I bought a CD compilation of their stuff from 68-71 called The Philadelphia Years. Haven't played it yet.

Still have yet to give Big Bam Boom a spin.

My disgust for Ooh Yeah! (aside from "Everything Your Heart Desires" which is one of my fave songs of them ever) has not dimmed my curiosity for Marigold Sky which I believe will be better.

Would you ever want to spend time with someone who has sat down and sympathetically listened to all these albums at least twice?

I wouldn't.

^^ this fucking guy

I like Hall and Oates, but come on.

Would you listen to a guy who posted stupid rhetorical questions on a Hall & Oates thread?

Yeah the thing I think most ridiculous about flute cake's post was that it appeared on a Best Hall & Oates Album thread! I mean ideally you would think a person who would vote in such a poll would have heard all the albums, right? *baffled*

Anyway I didn't like Big Bam Boom much either aside from Method Of Modern Love (of course) and "Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid". In general, I just don't care for most of their 80's stuff compared to some of what they did in the 70's.

I gotta tell you though I'm convinced the absolute CROWN JEWEL of their career is these early demos that appear on "The Philadelphia Years" CD. We're talking '68-'71. They are just devastatingly beautiful. Innocent and childlike sometimes. VERY folky. Not so much soul as folk, although at times they flirt with soul, even country. I like this CD so much I've even neglected their first album Whole Oats in favor of this, which I feel guilty about cause I need to go back to that.

I did buy their 2002 album "Do It For Love" the other day, though. Not sure what I think yet but I remember one Oates song that was quite good.

The last few tracks on the "Philadelphia Years" CD get a bit corny though...just a few tracks they did with some orchestra and there's horns and stuff. Yuck. But the rest is just bliss to my ears.

Also here's two versions of She's Gone that need to be seen/heard to believed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj9JUKqVG_k
(Old Grey Whistle Test 1976)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZZngTkp54I
(no, I don't understand why Hall looked so girly in those days, either)

"Livetime" from 1978 is such a treat!

DO WHAT YOU WANT BE WHAT YOU ARE!

It has "The Emptyness" too which is already one of my faves. I've also had "I'm Just a Kid (Don't Make Me Feel Like A Man)" running through my head for days now.

'had i known you better then' is such a nice little ditty

It is -- nice use of space.

big bam boom isn't their best, but it has one of their best songs -- some things (are better left unsaid).

Great chords on that one.

Remove "Bank On Your Love" and "Going Thru the Motions" and it's as good as H2O and Private Eyes.

Goddamn I need some quality time with this band.

i've only heard abandoned lunchonette once now, but it's an interesting early view of the act in a much more raw form than i'm used to.

Their videos did them lasting damage. 'stache notwithstanding, Oates was an equal partner -- his songwriting and playing chops are all over their records -- not the goofball who looked jealous that the mulleted Aryan got all the attention.

oates is funny in family man. lots of mugging for the camera.

The 12" inch versions of the singles included on the BBB reissue are amazing. Like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z4zWSNsSkA

holy shit dudes did you hear their christmas album from 2006? very hall and oates-y

and by that i mean smooth

Not enough love for Voices, their first successful stab at New Wave guitar crunch ("Big Kids," "United States"). Unfortunately it also boasts the Righteous Bros cover.

the sincere hall and oates appreciation is the most charming and righteous thing about ILM, for me.

Saw them at the Hollywood Bowl a few weeks ago and it was seriously amazing. All the hits, full orchestra for half the set, sax/flute player str8 funkin out... Their band didn't sound too slick or "modern", just really tight and laid back.

Along The Red Ledge wuz robbed!!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccenFp_3kq8&ob=av3e

Has anyone read this interview from 2009? It's fantastic! Thorough!

certainly thorough! and...laborious

Kevin: I guess this question kind of ties in with that, the way that you've been in the industry through so many different changes, just from a production standpoint, from like a studio environment standpoint. When you first started, everything was analog and most of the songs were cut live, and you basically got one or two takes. You were actually there for the advent of things like sequencers and samplers and drum machines and, later on, MIDI and autotuners and Pro Tools and all that stuff. I know that you definitely seem to embrace all the new changes in technology and production methods. I was just wondering if you feel that, in any way, the musical arts have suffered or have benefited from these changes.

Daryl: Well, I've got a lot of feelings about that—mixed feelings. I always used new technology as it came along as a tool. I mean, when the first polyphonic synthesizer came in about 1976, that was an amazing thing because, before that, all you had was a Hammond Organ and a Wurlitzer, a Fender Rhodes or something like that. You were really limited as a keyboard player in what kind of sounds that you could make. So something like that was a great tool to bring in. But you still used it in the old-fashioned way, you know? Even though it was a new tool, it was still used in the same way as a Fender Rhodes would be used.

God, Abandoned Luncheonette is so good. You can just see rain inching along a windowpane in kind of grainy 1970s TV color.

Abandoned Luncheonette is my favorite of their albums.

Ha, apparently this is the time of year that I dig back into early, laid-back H&O records. Normally Abandoned Luncheonette does it for me on the autumnal evening wistful front, but I'm totally feeling Whole Oates tonight. "Goodnight and Good Morning" is so lush, and there are some just straight up acoustic cuts from Oates that put them smack in the Byrds/CSNY/John Denver countryfolkpop universe.

Has anyone read this interview from 2009? It's fantastic! Thorough!

Ha, apparently this is the time of year that I dig back into early, laid-back H&O records. Normally Abandoned Luncheonette does it for me on the autumnal evening wistful front, but I'm totally feeling Whole Oates tonight. "Goodnight and Good Morning" is so lush, and there are some just straight up acoustic cuts from Oates that put them smack in the Byrds/CSNY/John Denver countryfolkpop universe.

― Doctor Casino, Saturday, October 11, 2014 11:23 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it is happening again. whole oats is like everything i want from this kind of album.

though, i never noticed before how ridiculous the lyrics to "georgie" are. As much as he hated it, the preacher was teachin' him to play the accordion.

Also the way Oates sings

We sat on a wall,
Rest our feet, touch our noses

sounds like

We sat on a walrus
Our feet touch our noses

In which I look at eighties Hall & Oates.

Any excuse to post...

http://www.cardebater.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/fiero-hall-and-oates.jpg

am always a little baffled by H20 love but I'm also always meaning to give it a little more of a chance. they peak with voices and private eyes for me (the only two i did poll threads for, i think?), H20 feels like that same sound but with weaker songs (should have held onto the new-to-greatest-hits material) whereas BBB is at least its own thing and you can get in the groove.

btw i think you may have the plot of "family man" backwards, apart from the part abt hall coming off as a creep.... she's not being unfaithful but HE'S a protest-too-much family man who clearly WANTS to be unfaithful though in the end he seems to let the chance slip through his sweaty, frustrated fingers.

Ooh! Yeah is not a big drop off, in my opinion. I love "Talking All Night".

haulin' oats

I got a nice copy of H20 yesterday and on first listen it is very enjoyable, but I didn't like it nearly as much as Voices. The arrangements didn't seem as distinctive and it didn't have as much kick. Maneater still as amazing as it was on the radio as a kid.

One thing I like visiting these albums as albums: I look at the covers and say, "oh, this album had one big single", then I hear three other songs I know but didn't know the title. You spend enough time in doctors' offices, you will here lots of H&O.

oh I love Hall's spacey synthy stuff like "Open All Night" and the Crenshaw-esque power pop of "Delayed Reaction."

I was drinking absinthe and playing rummy with my wife while we listened, so the spacey synthy stuff sort of washed over me. I will listen a couple more times this week and see what sticks.

i definitely like the production more than the songs on that album - versus the two preceding blockbusters, it really feels like single-plus-whatever, and the singles both have this kinda mean-spirited feeling to them which, while totally in line with Hall's lyrical persona generally, just kinda doesn't make me wanna pull the album out. "Delayed Reaction" is the only one that ever really pops into my head, i guess to a lesser extent "Italian Girls" as dopey as it is. Big Bam Boom also feels short on material, but there i can REALLY get into the sound for its own sake.

oh "Open All Night" is an asshole's lament for sure; so is "Family Man." But I slot this album over its two predecessors because it's so damn tight: no wasted moments, the band knows each other well, etc.

Oates gets a good song on that record with "At Tension".

Big Bam Boom also feels short on material, but there i can REALLY get into the sound for its own sake.

― Bobo Honk, real name, no gimmicks (Doctor Casino), Sunday, June 6, 2021 6:06 AM

because i feel like arguing, a counterpoint: side one of that album is the best thing hall + oates ever did.

The album was voted #4 in our Rundgren production poll, over Bat Out of Hell, so I guess it is generally esteemed. I feel that parts of it almost attempt a cloning of his own records, and if this has roused your interest, you should definitely check out A Wizard, A True Star and Todd.

oh for sure, it’s of a piece with Wizard and Todd

He produced this Felix Cavaliers in 1974 and it sounds less fugged up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3zJAcYuqic

"Hall & Oates" is a fiction. None of these albums say "Hall & Oates" on them, it's Daryl Hall & John Oates, or simply Daryl Hall John Oates. That said, I have no opinion on which is best, you guys are probably correct about that.

thanks for the Rundgren album recs, will check out!

You may find "Number One Lowest Common Denominator" a better version of what they tried in "Screaming Through December".

Interested to hear your thoughts on A Wizard…, dc

According to Daryl, War Babies got them dropped from their label because it was too indulgent.

plausible! they'd also released three albums to very limited success... five singles, with only one even charting, at #60 on the Hot 100 (the original issue of "She's Gone"). they probably seemed like a bad investment that it was time to bail on!

have spent some time with A Wizard..., enough to put it on my vinyl wantlist! Thanks for the rec. It definitely clarifies what the Rundgren/Utopia side of things is contributing to War Babies. I think for my tastes, the parts of WB that work are slightly more my jam... I like the idea of H&O's interests providing a consistent set of ingredients for the wacky art-rock stuff to play off of. Makes me wish they'd done an album with mid-70s Eno. But it's clearer now that the stuff that doesn't work is more due to either weaknesses in the material or a failure to mesh with the TR crew, than any inherent weaknesses on the latter's part. Also I have "just another onion heeeaad" stuck in my head all the time now.

not sure i ever actually scrolled up and looked at the poll results on this thread. some really unusual votes there! didn't even know they *had* those 90s and 00s albums.

Glad you like Wizard! So are you saying you'd rather have heard how Rundgren would've produced a "She's Gone"-type song, instead of Daryl trying to out-weird Todd with bizarre material?

Hmmm. I mean, I love the title track so much, and that's definitely in the "out-weird" zone (or was it more Rundgren encouraging them to embrace their weirder ideas?). But in terms of missed potential I look more to like, "Better Watch Your Back" which is a more conventional kind of H&O song that has this more post-psych art-rock sound to it. Idk. I think I'm really just hearing a lot of the songs as almost-great but a little clunky, and imagining they just needed a few more weeks rehearsing together with the band and getting a feel for the songs all together, finding what they wanted to be.