Hey guys and gals, Ian wanted me to post this essay he did on Hall and Oates since he's off to Seattle for a family visit. Dig it, it's some good writing. Here's Ian "The Dean of 80s Rock" Wagner:
Hauntings: a Hall and Oates Compendium Pt. 1"Sometimes a group comes along in the rock spectrum that challenges listeners due to the surface components of its sound. The listener, blindsided by history’s predilection for stamping itself on culture, cannot see the enduring miasma of emotional heartache and transcendental purity lurking beneath the trendy cultural surface. In the 80s, the poster boys of this searing beauty were Hall and Oates.
Hall and Oates came a long way from earlier works, The Temptones and The Masters, respectively. Formed at Temple University, the duo was fueled by the area’s poverty and sexual tension: key themes in their megalithic oeuvre.
Their first release was 1972’s
Whole Oats on Atlantic Records. Since then, the duo managed to ensconce their culture—the 70s and 80s—through 17 albums (more than the Beatles) and 16 top ten singles, not to mention a barrage of biographic tomes and one stellar documentary,
Can’t Go For That, produced by myself as a trade school project in June of 1987. Through each work the depths of humanity were explored, exhumed, surmised, and reproduced in a cascading cavalcade of drum machine and Korg beauty, not to mention urbanic* bass. White soul never sounded so breathless and haunting. Of course, their music has all the energy of psychedelic classics, as well. Buddha Records didn’t release
X-Static for nothing. However, the combination of intense music and lyrical savagery is what attracts me most. Below is “Rich Girl,” a 1976 (the year punk broke)** effort showing Hall and Oates' talents at their most obvious. The song couches its social-sexual commentary amid Darryl Hall’s virulent mouth work and Oates’ brimming energy:
http://s7.yousendit.com/RichgrlOf course, "Rich Girl" was only their first number one single. Hall and Oates have enjoyed a long illustrious career, complete with the magnificent comeback
Marigold Sky. Future installments of my essay will delve into these, but for now I’m focusing on the heights they attained in the early 80s. Segueing from the stylistic declaration of "Rich Girl," for me their greatest achievement has always been 1982’s
H20 and its crown, “Maneater.”
H20, like the similar
Private Eyes before it, was a veritable soup of blissful hooks, R&B pizzazz, and stylish, conservative 80s production. The music remains as soulful as ancient African song, and as mathematical as the Greeks. The tastefulness of this duo has never been in more full effect. The album also contains their finest piece, the tragic psychosexual odyssey “Maneater.” Over sax rhythms straight out of Birdland, and the sinister, steady inflections of the rhythm section, Hall outlines the story of a down-and-out loner worn thin by women who “only come out at night.” When Hall’s voice shimmies on the adlib, “The woman is wild / the woman is wild / ooooo,” the entire song vibrates in a bleak, sexual flux that envelopes the listener in its clasping goo. Of course, Hall's paranoia at the psychic powers of woman is unignorable. I don’t need to say that, in 1982, this song was my world. It seemed to describe breakup-after-breakup, and as the walls came tumbling down on my love life I could see that “Maneater” was written on them. It speaks volumes of the composing chops employed by Hall and Oates that such a devastating tragedy—for “Maneater” is musical tragedy with as much lyrical prowess as
Hamlet not to mention a Faustian character—finds itself encased, like a horny fly in amber, by soothing melodies and rhythms. The bass is bouncy, the drums assured but flexible, and the lighter melodies positively drip against their stalwart background. More than Steely Dan, Hall and Oates (the better duo), proved that slickness did not equal lack of emotion. Here emotions are fluid and untamed. I like to think of Hall and Oates as primal polish.
http://s7.yousendit.com/ManeaterThey’d previously touched on dark territory, in what I call their “Theater of Despair,” namely tracks like "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" and "Private Eyes." The former, purloined mercilessly my Michael Jackson for "Beat It," casts "Maneater" in an upbeat light. Our narrator would "do most anything," but simply "can't go for that." He tries to love his femme fatale the best a down-on-his-luck charmer can. “Private Eyes" is an entirely different beast, however. This exposé of paranoia and social undress shows how deep their lyrics could go, and the precise, climbing notes of the studio Strat as it shreds only mirror the way we attempt to cover our most undone emotions with public composure. I haven’t been calling Darryl Hall the Dylans of the 80s for nothing.
http://s7.yousendit.com/PrivateeyesIt's obvious there is more to this duo than "fake" 80s production and gimmicky singles. Most critics disagree, but one day the composititional skills of these two will be realized by music fans. I also believe their lyrical message will reach the masses. In this mega-industrial age, where emotions are on trial and souls are burned like fossil fuel, I know I can always turn to their work. I hope with this essay you can too. Of course, Hall and Oates outline their own feelings best in “Out of Touch” when they say that humans are only “using our bodies up as we go along.” We are all shells, like the abandoned luncheonette of their 1973 meisterwork.
TO BE CONTINUED…
* patent pending, refers to the "language" of black music
** they would later record with punk/alternative pioneer Robert Fripp as producer on
Sacred Songs.
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