I think I'm more shocked than anything that to date I have never done a Retro Spin on a Hall & Oates album. This is all the more peculiar because I own every release they put out during the 80's. It's definitely long past overdue to play some catch up here. With so many to choose from, I opted to select H20 for the sole reason that it's ranked their most popular from the decade.
Because of the sheer depths of the duo's history, which far exceeds the 80's, both prior and beyond, it would be a massive undertaking to dive into their formation and legacy. I'd probably also offend many of their fans (if they read this), because my knowledge is only base level. Skin deep, if you will. I am by no means an expert on this one, being only familiar with what the radio told me I was supposed to like. As such, today, we'll focus strictly on the album in question, H20.
The album was released on October 4, 1982. Its overall success was pushed by singles, Maneater, One On One, and Family Man. The latter, was actually written, and originally recorded by Mike Oldfield for his Five Miles Out album, released earlier that same year. This one may be one of the few times that a remake was better than the original.
H20 slaps you hard in the face with opening track, Maneater, but then oddly shifts tone to a very synthpop sound, which doesn't necessarily fit with the aforementioned song. It's kind of weird to the ears, and made it feel like Hall and Oates may have built the remainder of the album around what they knew were hits. Basically, fill it in with throw away songs. This is something I've seen from a lot of artists who release more albums than they should. People who immediately come to mind are Prince, and Elton John, where you have to wade through the mediocrity to get to the good stuff.
My thoughts on this subsided a bit when Art Of Heartbreak kicked in, and was followed by One On One. This momentum continued into Open All Night, and Family Man, which subdued my concerns, and settled me in for a good listening session.
Oddly enough, my favorite song from the whole album may be the John Oates penned and sung, Italian Girls. Also at this point, I was finding myself adding track after track to my shuffle list. All of the above noted were followed by Guessing Game, and Delayed Reaction.
Overall, this was a great album to sit down and hear. It was also one of those special moments, which led me to want to jump into more of their music. That will be easy, as because I said, I already own all their 80's albums.
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THIS WEEK ON THE CHARTS
April 17, 1982
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