Hall and Oates “Do It for Love”
When I was seven years old, I loved the song “Private Eyes.” I just couldn’t get enough of it. The chorus. The handclaps. The video -- with the tall blonde guy and the short curly haired guy with the mustache. I loved how they magically changed from pastel green and white 1980s suits into grey gumshoe overcoats on the drum beat. I loved how the tall blonde guy jumped up and down as he sang and how the short curly haired guy just sort of swayed with the guitar. That year, 1981, my parents bought me a copy of “H20” and learned that the band’s name was not “Hallanoats,” as I thought, but “Hall & Oates.” And though I would quickly kick my addiction to “Private Eyes,” my curiosity about the duo persisted. There was just something about Darryl Hall and John Oates. What that “something” was, however, remained a mystery to me until very recently.
Darryl Hall & John Oates were the most commercially successful duo in the history of Pop music. They were an odd couple, blessed with two bonafide lead singers, one of whom had among the purest tenors in Rock music and the best falsetto of anyone not named “Al Green.” They made Pop songs, Soul songs, Folk songs and Rock songs. Most of them were lovely. Some of them were boring. And, every couple of years, one of them would be spot on perfect. Their singular appeal is hard to define. They were a duo in a universe of four and five piece groups. They were white men who could elicit authentic Philly Soul music. Along with Bill Medley a decade, Hall & Oates popularized the “Blue Eyed Soul” that would become so popular in the 80s and would eventually bridge the Pop and R&B charts. And while rarely considered an important band by critics, Hall & Oates were superstars for nearly a decade. Bookending their peak were dry spells where both popular and critical tastes nearly forgot about them. Yet, fifty years after they first got together, they’ve outlasted their own stardom and flourished somewhere between heritage Pop act and restless songwriters.
Beginning in the 1990s, Hall & Oates albums became sporadic as sales dried up. But slowly, once-suspicious listeners and critics began to reconsider the band. In the 2000s, Darryl Hall became a minor internet star and indie darling in the 2000s, when he launched his monthly web series, “Live From Darryl’s House.” John, meanwhile, released a number of solo albums and shaved his mustache. Together, the duo continued to tour regularly, delighting loyalists and filling arenas in Japan, where the group is inordinately popular. As the band entered their fourth decade and the singers were well into their fifties, Hall & Oates became more about a commitment to songwriting craft and Soul as a form than to either nostalgia or commercial success. While they were loosely affiliated with late 70s Yacht Rock, the duo wildly outsold and outlasted that cohort. “What was it,” we all began to wonder, “about Hall & Oates?”
That “it” is surprisingly hard to pinpoint. On the surface, it might seem all too obvious. The “it” is surely Darryl Hall’s voice, an instrument capable of climbing great heights and conjuring deeply felt emotion. Darryl Hall could take over a song, as he does on “One on One” or “Every Time You Go Away,” like Michael Jordan could take over a fourth quarter. That being said, there have been many extraordinary Soul singers whose careers never peaked or endured like Darryl Hall’s. So, perhaps it is not simply the voice. Perhaps, then, it is the uniqueness of a duo, wherein both men are gifted songwriters. Oates, while not the vocal equal of Hall, was still a viable lead singer and great harmonizer. Moreover, he injected more Rock edge to Hall’s gentler Soul. Or maybe it was the almost minimalist simplicity of their hits. “Rich Girl,” “Maneater,’ “Private Eyes” are short, taut and direct. Vocals on top of clean, spare instruments. Or maybe it was latent racism. Perhaps white America preferred their Soul music packaged neatly in blonde hair and blue eyes.
I’m not sure I would have ever discerned the “it,” If, like most bands, Hall & Oates stopped making music when they passed their prime. But because they continued on, honoring their partnership and their love of Soul music, we ultimately got 2003’s “Do It for Love.” On this album, in its soulful pleading and vocal sweetness, we unlock the mystery of Hall & Oates’ “it.” They were a Boy Band all along. A great one. A pioneering one. An aging one. A fabulously successful and enduring one. In between Boyz II Men and The Backstreet Boys lies the smooth, tightly packaged, Pop Soul of Hall & Oates -- the Boy Band for grown ups. That’s their “it.”
“Do It for Love” arrived six years after “Marigold Sky,” which was a generally decent and quickly forgotten follow-up to 1990s “Change of Season.” “Change of Season” was the last time Hall & Oates recorded for a major label and flirted with the Pop charts. In those thirteen years, between major label has beens and something vaguely indie and vaguely Adult Contemporary, Hall & Oates stopped worrying about commercial success and learned to love their songs again. The result was a focused, if ambitious album, featuring nearly and hour of love songs dipped in soul. More than half of the songs are of the pleading, slow jam variety, though wrapped in a breezy and gentler package. The music, which is often a soft, melodic feather bed of Spanish guitar, maracas and church organ, is there in service of Darryl Hall’s voice and the duo’s harmonic choruses. Notably, John Oates appears almost exclusively as a backing singer and songwriter. He plays virtually no guitar and takes lead vocals only briefly. Hall plays a lot of keyboard and, even in his mid-fifties, is in excellent form vocally. After three decades, Darryl Hall & John Oates settled into their proper roles.
Disabused of their stardom, on “Do It for Love,” Hall & Oates sound like two men who genuinely enjoy their profession. This recaptured joy yielded several Adult Contemporary hits, including the title track, which reached number one on the charts. That song, along with several others, are of the impassioned, pleading, baby I will do anything variety. The tracks that are not on bended knees are still love songs, though they tend to be more dreamy or heartbroken than desperate. A few of the songs feature electric guitar and some are slower than others. But, in virtually every way, “Do It for Love” is a consistently pretty, and occasionally beautiful, album of Soul music. There is an easy vibe that evokes Lionel Richie. There is “Heartbreak Time,” that evokes Daptone Records’ neo-Soul with its smart electric guitar, organ and Hall’s falsetto. And “Miss DJ” sounds positively modern in its lite Space Funk, reminding me that Pharrell, as great as he can be, has literally nothing on Hall & Oates.
While “Do It for Love” has some range, it is decidedly focused and foremost a vocal album. But it is not vocally showy like Doo Wop or virtuoso like Otis or Aretha or Sam Cooke or sweaty like Gerald Levert, Babyface, R. Kelly or (well) Keith Sweat. No, there is something catchier, more melodic and very lightly rhythmic in these songs. Hall’s tenor is so pure as to be almost pre-pubescent. The lyrics are simple and idealistic, even when they are about mature subjects and characters. And the harmonies are slightly muscular but rarely complicated. The cumulative effect of this lovely and loyal, if flaccid Soul music, is something like Darryl Hall fronting NSYNC or The Backstreet Boys. The beats are never sharp. Sex is suppressed. And the marvel is the implied purity of it all. In sound and matter, “Do It for Love” has the purest of intentions.
To be clear, the album breaks no new ground and offers no songs that equal the duo’s better material. If Hall & Oates re-present themselves as a Boy Band in 2003, they are a Boy Band for retirees or for the wine drinking that comes after the book club has finished their serious matters. It’s not an album I am likely to return to, but this is not to diminish the accomplishment. “Do It for Love” is a late career surprise and delight. NSYNC’s “Tearin’ Up My Heart” and The Backstreet Boys’ “I Want it That Way,” owe a great deal to Hall & Oates. More to the point, Hall & Oates out-sing those two great Pop hits on most of “Do It for Love.” Finally, and most importantly to me, the legendary duo finally revealed why I liked them so much at age six and forty-six. They were a Pop band. They were a vocal group. They were a Soul outfit. But, they were always, at their core, a Boy Band. That’s the “it” of Hall & Oates.