Defending Hall & Oates

Might as well shoot any indie cred I had to pot with this post. Just how well has the popular music of the 1980s aged? Not so well, right? (I'm not talking about U2, The Clash, etc. here, just top 40 pop). But we all have our skeletons in the closet. One of mine is that I still enjoy Hall & Oates. I had an interesting conversation with a group of friends on an email list yesterday and one of them (who to his great relief will remain nameless) offered the following defense:

The interesting thing is that H&O have become somewhat more well-regarded by me now than they ever were in their heyday (although I loved them then.) In the 80s, I just thought of them as a silly pop group, and completely missed the way they were updating Motown and Philly Soul traditions. It wasn't rootless music at all. (It sounds silly, but there's actually such a thing as "pop music literacy.") And they sure knew their way around a hook, that's for sure. Maktub, a band with a whole lot more indie cred, actually can be caught sounding quite a bit like H&O at times. It's the same soul-into-pop with-a-rock-edge formula.

The duo had a few clunkers to be sure--"Adult Education" immediately springs to mind. But the point is that after setting their lamer efforts aside and stripping away the layers of street cred and hip quotient, there are some pretty good songs left. And it's not just me and a handful of friends. Check out this analysis from Ben Gibbard, the lead singer for indie darlings Death Cab for Cutie (thanks to AM for the reference):

Probably the most inane question asked during interviews with bands or musicians is the "what are your influences" question....Usually, bands rattle off a safe, standard list of punk and indie rock favorites and expound on where they were when they first saw Band X play or how Band Z's first seven-inch made them realize that music was their life's calling. Hey, I've done it! We all have, especially when we were younger, more insecure, and felt it was necessary to broadcast a beacon of touchstones to let everyone know that we were "down."
I've been thinking about my REAL influences lately, and I've realized that the question should really go a little further back, a little deeper. Probably back to a time before I knew who Fugazi and Pavement were. For me, that time was the 80s, and it was in the music of Hall & Oates.

Read on and you will find a song-by-song analysis of the H&O canon. Here is my top 5 list:

1) One on One
Gibbard tried to get Death Cab to cover this song. I feel vindicated. I just find the melody irresistible. Did I just write that?

2) You Make My Dreams
As Gibbard writes: "You Make My Dreams" has the shuffling dance beat and pro-love lyrics of a true 1980s white-person-dance-party movie classic. Everybody cut footloose.

3) Kiss on my List
Not the best H&O song, but I inserted in the list for nostalgic purposes, since it was the first song of theirs I heard.

4) She's Gone
Could have easily put "Rich Girl" or "Sara Smile" here. Wanted a representative from the early period. Weird how interchangeable these three songs are to me.

5) I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)
Funky little ditty worth inclusion just for the "No Can Do" line alone. Requisite 80s sax solo included.

Honorable Mention:
Say It Isn't So: Written in the twilight of their peak period.

Anything post-1990 I can't claim to have even heard. Hey, where'd everybody go?