Daryl Hall and John Oates not only kicked off 1981 (with Voices<\/i>), they ended the year as well (with Private Eyes<\/i>). As my pick for the best Hall & Oates album, Voices <\/i>winds up being a classic pop album and proof of why Hall & Oates were among the most successful duos of the decade. <\/p>\n
For collectors, it was a memorable release because there were two different album covers to choose from. But it’s the music that matters, and here the first taste of the disc was a risky cover of the Righteous Brothers classic \u201cYou\u2019ve Lost That Lovin\u2019 Feeling.\u201d And you know what? Not only do they pull it off, they make it better than the original. <\/p>\n
The New Wave flourishes help to show the world that Hall & Oates, like Olivia Newton-John, weren\u2019t afraid to change with the times. If anything, the way they adapted to the 80s was quite impressive. The blue-eyed soul was traded in for mainstream pop, which suits the twosome even better. <\/p>\n
In contrast to how grim everything ended, Voices <\/i>finds Hall & Oates at their very best.\u00a0 Even the B-side \u201cAfrica\u201d is great — it\u2019s one song I couldn\u2019t get enough of as a kid. John Oates sang the lead vocal on that track, as he does on the opening song \u201cHow Does It Feel To Be Back,\u201d which has a strong, deliberate rhythm and some nice jangling guitars. <\/p>\n
Principal vocalist Daryl Hall also has ample opportunity to shine on the punk-leaning \u201cUnited State\u201d and one of my sister Laura\u2019s favorite hits from the 80s, \u201cKiss On My List.\u201d One song I have always wished could have been a hit single was \u201cHard To Be In Love With You,\u201d because it is one pop song that has all the hallmarks of a successful pop song. Does anyone else agree with me about this undiscovered gem? <\/p>\n
There are a few moments on Voices <\/i>that either slow the pace down to a crawl or are just plain awkward. The organ arrangement on \u201cEverytime You Go Away\u201d falls surprisingly flat, especially considering it was British singer Paul Young who later transformed the song into a smash hit in 1985. The doo wop harmonizing that we\u2019ve heard time and again from Hall & Oates makes a return on \u201cDiddy Doo Wop (I Hear The Voices),\u201d though even the sound of chopping lettuce can\u2019t save the song from utter obscurity. Same goes for \u201cGotta Lotta Nerve (Perfect Perfect),\u201d which contains lyrics that are about as dumb as its title suggests. <\/p>\n
At least they have the wonderful summer classic \u201cYou Make My Dreams\u201d to make up for the stumbles, which are not enough to mar a classic pop record worth hearing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":29094,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7473],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-40614","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-daryl-hall-john-oates","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40614"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40614"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}