Bloggerhythms

I've always liked Daryl Hall and John Oates from afar but in the 21st Century I've come to appreciate them a lot more than I have in the past. Home For Christmas was their third really strong CD in a row following 2003's Do It For Love and 2004's Our Kind Of Soul . All three CDs rival their best albums from the 70s and 80s suggesting that the 21st century edition of H & O is arguably just as good as their earlier incarnations. Even considering that hot streak I still wasn't expecting anything as stunningly and consistently great as Home For Christmas , one of my all-time favorite holiday albums. While Home For Christmas never loses sight of what Hall & Oates do best - making blue-eyed soul colored with lots of mainstream pop-rock - their choice of material for this album indicates the duo has far more eclectic tastes than they ever showed us during their glory years of the early 80s. Recording carols and religious songs for pop Christmas albums are ...

Below is an edited and updated blast from the past that was published on Bloggerhythms in its original form on December 1, 2006. Since then I've listened to a lot of new Christmas music so, seven years later, it's time for the 2013 edition of The Top 10 Christmas Albums Of All Time . You can see the older version here . _________________________________________________________ Every year, new holiday fare is released to the public to satiate their never-ending desire to hear Christmas music. It amazes me how the music industry continues to recycle the same Christmas songs year after year in various packages, by every conceivable artist known to man, and we keep buying. From James Galway, to Willie Nelson, to Lynyrd Skynrd, and everybody in between, Christmas music sells and sells and sells. One of the nice things about this time of year is we all enjoy music by artists that we would never otherwise think of listening to the rest of the year. A case in point is my adult daug...

After a seven year hiatus Daryl Hall & John Oates returned with a new CD in 1997, Marigold Sky . Because many critics and fans who heard it appreciated only parts of the uneven effort the album turned into a non-event. Ten years ago this month, and more than thirty years after their debut album appeared, the best-selling veterans tried again and this time, they gave the world a big surprise by releasing one of the best albums of their career, Do It For Love . Time away from one's day job often revitalizes people and it can be the same with artists. Do It for Love is a truly inspired set of songs with great lead vocals (once again, mostly from Hall) and excellent, instantly recognizable, blue-eyed soul harmonies from both. Just as importantly, the two Philadelphians moved away from (but not entirely) their glossy 1980s production values. The vocals are more upfront and center than they were during their heyday of making corporate, new wave, pseudo-soul, and while this CD do...

Whole Oats , the out of print, debut album from Hall & Oates is a complete anomaly in their catalog. The LP is more acoustic folk music than blue-eyed soul and more singer-songwriter based soft pop than rock. Here they sound nothing like the monster hitmaking machine of ten years later. Even so, it's obvious the duo was targeted for big things because Atlantic Records signed them to a contract and assigned the outstanding Arif Mardin to produce. His sterling track record includes Dusty Springfield's Dusty In Memphis . According to Wikipedia, the famous Philadelphians were going to use Whole Oats as their band name, and Atlantic even released a 45 RPM with that moniker, but the album was released in their own names instead even though they kept the original play on words as the album title. The closest this platter sounds to anything else Hall and Oates ever recorded was their classic followup, Abandoned Luncheonette , from 1973 but even that record differed greatly from...

Hall & Oates have always been an enigma. To this day they remain an immensely talented duo capable of some of the greatest white R&B vocal harmonies ever put down on vinyl. Yet during their heyday of the 80s, when they surpassed the Everly Brothers as the biggest selling duo in history, they succumbed, just like everyone else, to the excesses of the synthesizer. To me, during their hitmaking years they often sounded more like a new wave act than one playing blue-eyed soul while tallying up a ton of hits that included rock standards such as "Kiss on My List, "You Make My Dreams," "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do), "Maneater," "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling," and many more. Don't misunderstand me. They're good songs. It's just that the 80s production values washed most of the urban grit out of their arrangements. More recently, when H & O have performed the same songs properly with a drummer that isn'...

John Oates, one half of Hall and Oates, the biggest selling duo in pop music history, issued a very interesting solo CD in 2008 called 1000 Miles Of Life . It's not overloaded with the catchy hooks that are a trademark of his famous band but it's still a good enough outing to make you wonder why their long and stellar career was so dominated by Daryl Hall. Many fans of the superstar, 80s version of Hall and Oates may not realize that they began life as a folk-pop duo. The music they made in the early 70s was more singer-songwriter oriented even though blue-eyed soul was still a component of their work. Their best album from this period, Abandoned Luncheonette , (1972) was the perfect synthesis of folk and R & B. The highlight of the record was the single "She's Gone." It would take several more years for both the song and the album to become a hit after the success of "Sara Smile" but today they are considered classics. 1000 Miles of Life i...