Conventional pop wisdom would have me write something revisionist about received pop opinion at the top of a post about Daryl and John, but I'm not going to. I offer no quasi-apologetic preamble, and if you don't realise that Hall & Oates were making some of the best Soul-Pop music of the mid-70s, before their enormously successful early-80s, synthy heyday, then more fool you.
This is an absolutely terrific album. After their early, unsurpassed milestone of Abandoned Luncheonette (1973), they came out with this overlooked gem; fusing Power Pop and their own mellifluous style of Philadelphia Soul as successfully as the former album fused Soul with Sifunkel-esque folk. This crisp Power Pop aesthetic is without a doubt the handywork of their producer for this album, the young studio wizard Todd Rundgren. Members of Todd's novelty (sorry, 'prog') outfit, Utopia, in fact play on many tracks.
The vocals lead this album with a confidence and conscious irreverence for their lyrical content. I can't help but feel they know their strengths well enough to, not embrace, but make their own, their weaknesses. On 'Your Much Too Soon', lines like "I love you... but I don't love you", and "let me go let me go let me go now baby" have no pretensions, yet they carry tremendous strength simply in their unapologetic tunefulness (the latter lyric spirals with deft self-reliance on the extended outro). The baby boomer theme tune, 'War Baby Son Of Zorro' has probably more oblique ennui than any protest song before composed by a pop group, and every guitar solo on the album has a good-natured tongue-in-cheek tone (the ludicrous jazz-fusion interlude in 'Screaming Through December' should be proof enough to any unconvinced reader). All this ironical camp is merely an aesthetic, however, and the songs are robust, varied and, despite it all, really just as moving as the more sincere tracks on Abandoned Luncheonette.
I honestly cannot think of a bad word to say about this album. Every track works, and on its own terms. It really deserves a larger audience. @160kbs
Tracklist:
1. Can't Stop The Music 
2. Is It A Star
3. Beanie G. and the Rose Tattoo
4. You're Much Too Soon
5. 70's Scenario
6. War Baby Son of Zorro
7. I'm Watching You (A Mutant Romance)
8. Better Watch Your Back
9. Screaming Through December
10. Johnny Gore and the C Eaters
[reuploaded 29.03.11]
Recently ran through all the pre-Voices 70's stuff. You know it was hard for me to get through some of it...
ReplyDeleteBut this one really stood out. The lyrics seem to be about more, more illustrative of subjects than just girl I woke up and what do we do about love, and there's a nice flow from song to song...each it's own little character.
heh, well I personally only really listen to the pre-Voices albums with any reverence, but I'm happy we agree about the quality of this one.
ReplyDelete