Daryl Hall & John Oates - Original Album Classics (2013)

BOX SET MONTH (MAY, 2015)

A collection of 5 Hall & Oates CDs from their days with the RCA label, in cardboard album sleeve replicas, budget-priced (I picked mine up for $16.66). 3 of the 5 CDs include bonus tracks. Hall & Oates were finally inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 2014 and, more importantly, singled out as the group with the most Top 40 hits during the years 1976-85 over at My Favorite Decade.

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DARYL HALL & JOHN OATES (1975)
12 tracks, 42 minutes

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: #17
Peak on CashBox album chart: #47

U.S. charted singles:	Pop	R&B	AC
Alone Too Long		98
Sara Smile	4	23	18

Don't let the glam rock cover fool you, this is typical Hall & Oates soul/pop, albeit with the usual mid-70's trappings of overactive strings with odd instrumentation and production choices. Plus the boys' hadn't quite yet gained complete control of their falsetto voices. But the songwriting is so good and characteristically H&O that you hardly notice. Sara Smile is the hit here, but there are other songs just as good, including Alone Too Long and Nothing At All. The album falls apart at the end, but tracks 1-7 are solid. Of the two bonus tracks, I would take What's Important to Me over the album's actual last track, Soldering.

I wasn't buying albums in 1975, so I hadn't heard this one all the way through until I picked up this box set. I thought it was going to be Sara Smile and a bunch of filler, so I was pleasantly surprised.

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BIGGER THAN THE BOTH OF US (1976)
9 tracks, 35 minutes

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: #13
Peak on CashBox album chart: #20

U.S. charted singles:	Pop	R&B
Do What You Want, Be What You Are	39	29
Rich Girl	1	64
Back Together	28	70

The soul songs are top-notch as usual, but the pop stuff here can't seem to make up its mind if it wants to be Boz Scaggs, ELO, Lynyrd Skynyrd, or Todd Rundgren. As a result, there's a few skippable tracks here, including most of what was side two, although I like the closing track, Falling. Daryl Hall is in fine voice throughout although he's pushed to the back on my disc's wacky mix. Why the slow-burning Do What You Want Be What You Are wasn't a bigger hit is a mystery to me. Not the duo's best release, but Rich Girl is a stone cold classic and immediately takes me back to Mrs. French's fifth grade classroom, my home away from home during the 1976-77 school year.

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BEAUTY ON A BACK STREET (1977)
9 tracks, 37 minutes

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: #30
Peak on CashBox album chart: #23

U.S. charted single:	Pop
Why Do Lovers Break Each Other's Heart?	73

With the exception of the low-charting single, this album is a continuation of everything that was wrong with the previous album. Meh.

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PRIVATE EYES (1981)
13 tracks, 56 minutes

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: #5
Peak on the Billboard Rock Album chart: #19
Peak on CashBox album chart: #5

U.S. charted singles:	Pop	R&B	AC	Dance
Private Eyes	1		33
I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)	1	1	12	1
Did It In a Minute	9		29
Your Imagination	33	45

At the peak of their commercial powers, with an energetic band and solid tunes throughout. As overplayed as the title track is, I'll be dadgummed if it still doesn't sound fantastic. That's followed by the inexplicably ignored Motownish Looking For A Good Sign. Then the disc's signature tune, I Can't Go For That (No Can Do) with a bass line so sweet it's been lifted by the likes of Robyn, CeeLo Green, Michael Jackson, and Simply Red (among others). The Oates tune, Mano A Mano, is the only skippable tune on the disc, but it bounces back nicely with the Kiss On My List sound-alike, Did It In A Minute. And that's just side one. The six tracks that make up side two contain some filler, but at least it's good, enjoyable filler with the occasional hook.

The 2 bonus tracks are 12" versions of My Imagination and I Can't Go For That (No Can Do) which, while they aren't the most inventive remixes, are good enough for this guy. If a little is good, more is better, right?

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H₂O (1982)
14 tracks, 64 minutes

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: #3
Peak on the Billboard Rock Album chart: #19
Peak on CashBox album chart: #4

U.S. charted singles:	Pop	R&B	AC	Dance
Maneater	1	78	14	18
One on One	7	8	4
Family Man	6	81	36

While it contains the duo's biggest chart hit, the misogynistic Maneater, this album isn't as good as Private Eyes or Voices. It does, however, contain one of my favorite H&O songs, One On One. I also like Open All Night and most of what was side two (tracks 6-11). The Top 10 single Family Man never did much for me in 1982 and still doesn't.

The bonus tracks are 12" remixes of the three singles. Not surprisingly, my favorite is One On One.

On my list of the Top 82 Albums of 1982, this album placed at #37. In a 3 star review, Rolling Stone magazine called H₂O "a competent but off-putting album whose icy virtuosity makes Kraftwerk sound as down-home as a bluegrass band." Yikes - that's a bit harsh. But the album has gone platinum several times over, so H&O get the last laugh on that count.

Previously revisited for the blog:
Big Bam Boom (1984)
Voices (1980)