Darryl Hall “Three Hearts in the Happy Ending Machine”
In 1984, Hall & Oates were among the biggest recording artists in the world. They were global. All over MTV. Front row for “We Are The World.” They sold out arenas everywhere. In fact, they were so commercially reliable it was a veritable given that their albums would produce a number one hit. “Big Bam Boom,” from that year was perhaps their worst album in a decade, but the goodwill they had accrued helped to land “Out of Touch” on the top of the charts. We couldn’t have know then, but, in retrospect, it would be their last trip to number one and their last album as megastars.
Eventually, the emergence of Contemporary R&B, Hip Hop and Alternative Rock would drive Hall & Oates Pop Soul out of the zeitgeist. But that was still a few years away. The truth is, by Hall & Oates standards, “Out of Touch” was just a “very good” single. It is the least memorable of all their number one hits. It’s fun, but not one tenth the fun of, say, “You Make My Dreams.” However, like all of their hits, it had that one thing that no other group could claim: Darryl Hall’s voice.
Darryl Hall was born to sing. Both of his parents were professional singers. He was a natural tenor. He was tall and very blonde, but could sing Philly Soul as well as it could be sung. His voice was powerful and flexible and he had a falsetto that rivaled Prince’s. By 1986, much of the world knew these things. We also knew that Darryl Hall could write hits. What we did not know was whether he could produce hits without John Oates.
In considering Darryl Hall’s solo turn in 1986, it’s critical to understand the tectonic changes that were happening in pop music at the time. Whereas in 1985, the Billboard Hot 100 was dominated by Madonna, Wham, Tears for Fears, Foreigner and Huey Lewis, in 1986, the charts were filled with Contemporary Soul and R&B. Whitney Houston, Lionel Richie, Patti Labelle and the Dionne Warwick, Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder superfriends had some of the biggest hits in music that year. “Blue eyed soul” was emerging on the charts as well, with Simply Red and Robert Palmer. It was a year of transition from New Wave to Contemporary R&B. It was a moment, it seemed tailor made for Darryl Hall, who was fluent in New Wave but whose first language was Soul Music.
Though he was forty years old at the time — not young by Pop music standards — conditions were quite ripe for a Darryl Hall solo record. Interestingly, this wasn’t Hall’s first solo record. In 1977 he recorded an odd and oddly compelling album with Robert Fripp of King Crimson. It was shelved for three years and has since become a critically acclaimed curiosity from the era. But this wasn’t 1977. Or 1980. No -- 1986 should have been the exact, right moment for Darryl Hall.
Unfortunately, the choices that Darryl Hall made on “Three Hearts in the Happy Ending Machine” are hard to describe and not much easier to defend. To start, let’s paint the picture of how he styled himself (or was styled) for his big moment. He grew out his long, slightly strawberry hair, and employed the aggressive spray and curl comb method that was en vogue in my middle school at the time. He wore an oversized black leather jacket and white t-shirt underneath. I believe the effect was supposed to invoke The Ramones or The Stray Cats or James Dean by way of a New Jersey mall. But on a forty year old man in 1986, he looked like somebody dressed up in Darryl Hall costume for a karaoke performance of “Stray Cats Strut.”
Fashion aside, the music itself is hard to sum up. It has trappings of the intricate New Wave that Tears for Fears were making. It has many classic Soul music nods. It has layers upon layers of guitars, often more than one lead guitar simultaneously. It has extended intros, outros and breakdowns in every song, stretching two to three minute ideas into five minute synth and vocal jam sessions. “Rich Girl” was less than one hundred and fifty seconds. “You Make My Dreams” is barely three minutes. Darryl Hall and John Oates understood the virtue of brevity. But, apparently, Darryl Hall did not. As importantly, “Three Hearts” has six people credited with “drum programming,” five credited with “additional percussion” and one person credited with “drums.” The rhythmic discomfort of this album -- the complete lack of a reliable beat -- is likely its greatest vulnerability.
The thing holding this record together, of course, is Darryl Hall’s extraordinary, almost gymnastic, vocals. There’s very little his voice cannot do. However, if this record were actually gymnastic floor routine, instead of being ninety seconds, it would be almost fifty minutes, would appear improvised and would have three songs playing at once at all times.
Unsurprisingly, there is some sunshine amidst the confusion. The album’s first track, “Dreamtime,” also its first single, is a jangle pop gem with a winning chorus that showcases Darryl Hall the Pop singer. If much of the minute long intro and two minute outro were excised, it would be a perfectly lovely song. There are four songs on “Three Hearts” that were co-written with The Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart, all of which feature the complex layering effects that worked for many New Wave bands. But while Annie Lennox could burst through the synthetic stew, Hall’s delicacy gets buried under the weight of programming on “I Wasn’t Born Yesterday.” Similarly, on “For You” when Hall turns to his perfectly magical falsetto, it sounds more like he is screaming to be pulled out from under the weight of the production. The last Hall / Stewart collaboration on the record, “Let It Out” was a third single and is serviceable. It would have made a decent theme song to a screwball comedy from the era. But not much more.
When he is not driving towards Pop, Hall looks to Prince and classic R&B for direction. “Someone Like You” finds Hall in the pocket. It slows things down and then spends much of the song with Hall’s vocals trying to find a groove that never arrives. Such is the problem with most of the R&B tracks tracks here. Darryl Hall is every bit the singer that Prince is. But he’s nowhere near the songwriter or bandleader. Hall tries smooth whispering. He tries call and response. He sings faster than he should, confusing speed and force with passion. He tries all of the above on “Next Step,” a Funk workout with four credited writers. But none of it makes up for the fact that twenty five players and a half dozen “programmers” can’t approximate Tears for Fears, much less The Time or The Revolution.
“What’s Gonna Happen To Us,” the closer, is an obligatory, late-Reagan political think piece. This is Hall questioning -- in prose more than in song -- what our government’s motivations are, over a Roxy Music groove. It’s actually not a bad chorus. It’s cringey in the way that many of Michael Jackson’s statement songs are, but almost as catchy. In fact, if he’d given this song to Michael Jackson in 1986, I bet it would have been a massive hit. In his own hands, it’s odd and misplaced.
There are many Darryl Hall songs that I love. None of them are on this album. He had so much going for him and so much at his disposal at this very moment that it’s hard to explain how he missed so wildly. He didn’t need more talent. He didn’t need more vocals. Or more guitars. I’m not sure he needed John Oates. I’d even venture to say that there are probably a bunch of very good songs here that are marred by tinkering and over-programming. Whatever, the root cause, it was a miss. I’ve no idea what the solution should have been. But, I suspect he could have started with one single drummer. And, an editor. And, most definitely, a stylist.