It’s been an arduous couple of weeks for me in terms of my music listening. Do What You Want, Be What You Are: The Music of Daryl Hall and John Oates, is the third four-disc box set (after Big Star: Keep An Eye On the Sky, and Where the Action Is! L.A. Nuggets 1965 – 1968 ) that I’ve reviewed in that period. I don’t know if this is true for other writers, but reviewing large collections like these is more difficult for me than reviewing single albums. You are forced to stay focused on one artist or genre for an extended period of time. My attention span just doesn’t work that way naturally. But enough bitching about my relatively minuscule concerns.
I am tempted to compare Hall and Oates to another band that I wrote about recently: the Four Seasons. This may sound somewhat dubious at first, but bear with me. Both groups were singles-oriented, and had multiple hits. Neither group ever got much in terms of respect from the musical tastemakers. I’m sure this didn’t make a damn bit of difference to them as they were cashing their royalty checks. My point is, do we really need a four-disc career retrospective from a group that lived and died on their single releases? Wouldn’t a two-disc greatest hits compilation do the trick? The answers aren’t all that obvious. In fact, it’s a tough call.
Daryl Hall and John Oates had six number one singles. In addition to these, they had 10 Top 10 hits. You know these songs, and yes, you probably love them. For people of a certain age, these songs are a soundtrack to their lives. I’m talking about songs like “Rich Girl,” “Kiss on My Lips,” “Maneater,” and my favorite of the number ones, “Out of Touch.” There are the early jewels like “She’s Gone,” and “Sara Smile,” and later hits like “Everything Your Heart Desires.” They are all included in this set, and I’m happy to hear them again. (more…)
Last month we brought you an exclusive interview with Daryl Hall & John Oates, whose four-disc box set Do What You Want, Be What You Are arrives in nonexistent record stores today. Unfortunately, Oates’s legendary facial hair stayed silent throughout, even as its owner bristled at some of Hall’s answers. Now, in another Popdose exclusive, it breaks that silence (mainly so it can promote its J-Stache website and its videos on Funny or Die, but beggars can’t be choosers).
Is it true that you did both Wilson sisters at the same time but only after you finished a three-day four-way with Bananarama?
Carnie Wilson put a right angle on my dong, dude. No lie — I was north and south while me-will-willy was looking around the corner! I’d do it all over again given the opportunity. In fact, Carnie, call me, love. Let’s get twisted on fried foods, perks, and Arsenio Hall reruns. You know, see what happens. The ladies in Bananarama are into some strange stuff too. I’ve never been able to look at latex or eat oatmeal in the same way since. True story. (We meant Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart, but we’ll take any gossip we can get. —Ed.)
Is it true what you sang about Italian girls, or was that just a marketing scheme?
Well, I did write the line “I eat so much pasta pasta, I am so full and yet so lonely.” The autonomy of art, man. Leave it there, homes.
This is something we’ve been talking about doing for a long time — in fact, we really thought we’d be debuting the Popdose Podcast over a year ago. It wasn’t until we were finally able to trick our friend Dave Lifton into shuttering his long-running and wildly popular Wings for Wheels series that our plans came together — with the technical savvy necessary to edit our nonsensical jabbering into pure audio entertainment, and a strong enough personality to keep the entire podcast from dissolving into a giggling fit of mom jokes, Dave was the crucial final ingredient we were waiting for all along.
So open up your pod, baby, and let us in — and remember, this is only our debut. Even television classics like According to Jim didn’t enjoy their finest moments until they’d had a little time to hit their stride, and you have no idea what we have in store for you during the coming months. (Note: neither do we.) Like what you hear? Hate it? Drop us a line in the comments and let us know. And now, without further ado…
The Popdose Podcast, Episode 1: Donkey Eatin’ a Pony (1:09:49, 64.9 MB), featuring Jeff Giles, Jason Hare, and Dave Lifton. You can also subscribe to the podcast’s RSS feed.
38:20 Jason Hare credits Terje Fjelde’s awesome Popdose podcast contributions, then discusses Mariah Carey appearing on Oprah and covering Foreigner. Digressions continue into Mariah’s “All I Want for Christmas is You,” Journey, The Saw Lady, and Wing.
54:31 Popdose Endorsements (official title yet to be determined; offer your suggestions in the comments!): Jeff endorses fun. (song clip: “Benson Hedges”)
57:06 Popdose Endorsements: Dave endorses Robbie Fulks (song clip: “Papa Was A Steel-Headed Man”)
The career-spanning, four-disc box set Do What You Want, Be What You Are: The Music of Daryl Hall & John Oates comes out October 13, and in anticipation of its release, the 1980s pop superstars recently made a special stop in Bootleg City for an interview. (Okay, so their tour bus caught a flat. They were reluctant to talk at first, but once I proposed an alternate option — community service — they perked right up.)
Me: You two have been making music together for nearly 40 years. What do you consider to be the secret to your success?
Oates: Well, Daryl and I have a healthy balance of give and—
Hall: (interrupting) Take one-fourth of John and three-fourths of me and you’ve got the winning formula. We’re the Beatles of the post-Woodstock generation, no question. It was the same with them in their day: three-fourths Lennon and McCartney, one-fourth George, and one-fourth Ringo.
Oates: I’m pretty sure that adds up to—
Hall: The most successful rock ‘n’ soul group of all time, right after the Beatles. Exactly.
1989 found Elvis Costello in the throes of a full-on identity crisis. He had always been more than what the general perception gave him credit for; some of his earliest recordings were actually of a country-western variety, he had recorded an album of neo-soul (Get Happy!!,) cut a pop tune with Daryl Hall (”The Only Flame in Town”) and also a jazz track that could have put those who made their bones in the genre to shame (”Shipbuilding”) but still, the fans shouted for “Pump It Up” and “Radio Radio.” Perhaps his most obvious pitch for freedom from his alter ego’s tyranny came on the King of America album, credited to The Costello Show, with writing credits going to his birth name, Declan MacManus. The album featured almost all his signature styles in some form or fashion, but in 1986, the audience wasn’t having this de-invention. It would be his last album for Columbia.
Three years later, in what could only be considered a case of having your cake and eating it too, MacManus returned on a new label, Warner Bros., with a look vaguely similar to his feral Buddy Holly, only this time he was painted like a ghastly harlequin, beheaded, and mounted on a royal blue WB logo frame, a placard beneath the bizarre tableau reading “The Beloved Entertainer.” Here lies the genius of Elvis Costello, giving the public what they wanted AND the middle finger at the same time, for the album Spike is as much a departure as it is a symbol of everything the fans loved about him.
Reteaming with King Of America producer T-Bone Burnett, Costello and Kevin Killen brought a tight and focused sound to the proceedings, starting with the acerbic “…This Town…” where the musical machinations are paired with veddy-British misfit characters, all doomed beneath the chorus’ motto: “You’re nobody t’il everybody in this town thinks you’re a bastard.” EC was back — but ah-ah-ah, not so fast. The second song, a shuffling crime drama based on an infamous incident when Derek Bentley told Chris Craig, in reference to Sidney Miles, to ‘let him have it,’ was a sudden shock to the ear. “Let Him Dangle” recounts the event, the public reaction, and the underlying question: did Bentley mean “shoot him” or “hand over the gun” when he said, ‘let him have it’? This was as far from “Watching the Detectives” as one could get. (more…)
Let it be said, for starters, that Daryl Hall has a really nice house. It’s a rambling old place, somewhere in rural Pennsylvania. He needs to do something with the landscaping — the place is set way back from the road, on a hill, surrounded by a huge, bare open lot, and like a lot of mini-mansions it looks like it fell out of the sky — but the interior is beautiful; lots of exposed brick and beam, warm, dark wood tones, comfortably cluttered and tastefully appointed. In the web show “Live from Daryl’s House,” we don’t see much more of the place than the rec room-slash-home studio (of which more later) and the massive eat-in kitchen, but it looks like a gorgeous blend of traditional and modern. In one, Hall mentions that the basic structure dates back to the 18th Century; the entire house has been extensively remodeled and relocated.
Not unlike Daryl Hall’s face, actually. If you haven’t paid much attention to Hall & Oates lately — and let’s face it, why should you? — you may be surprised to note that Daryl has… well, he’s had some work done. The eye job is the most obvious change, but a side-by-side comparison shows an odd lengthening of the chin, as if all his facial features have migrated slightly northward. It might be a face-lift gone awry, or a bone-distorting disease like acromegaly; in any case, if this keeps up, Daryl Hall will eventually resemble Rondo Hatton.
My first concert was a Hall and Oates show, back in the ’80s, before Daryl began his slow metamorphosis into the Creeper. I hitched a ride with my friend Stu to a hockey rink in the desolate ass-end of Massachusetts for one of the shows on the Big Bam Boom tour. I only went because I wanted to see the opening act (I was a music snob even then), but the show was a perfectly satisfying pop product; the band was tight and solid and consistent, bopping along like a pizza-parlor jukebox. What struck me about Daryl Hall that night, though — as in all the H&O concert footage of the period — is the disproportionate effort he was putting in. He was in constant nervous motion, bouncing and mugging and shimmying beneath his extravagant mullet, oversinging and overselling every song, trying to inject a streetwise jive into the material — which was pretty shopworn, even then. Occasionally, he even succeeded; but man, was he over the top. (more…)
I’ve gotten bored with what I’ve been listening to lately, so recently I went back into my collection to dig out CDs I haven’t spun in a while, like De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising, an album I haven’t listened to in at least four or five years. Hearing this excellent disc again piqued my interest for two reasons, the first being that I didn’t realize the direct influence it most likely had on my love of both Urban Dance Squad and P.M. Dawn.
Urban Dance Squad brought rock, ska, and funk to their rap, throwing together bits and pieces of sounds that didn’t seem like they’d flow as one — sort of what Prince Paul does these days. 3 Feet High and Rising is one of the first albums he produced and a starting point for his future sound collisions. Then there’s P.M. Dawn, who happen to be one of my all-time favorite groups; there are at least three or four tracks on 3 Feet High that could have fit nicely on P.M. Dawn’s 1991 debut, Of the Heart, Of the Soul and of the Cross: The Utopian Experience. With both groups the flow is pretty much the same, and even the lyrical style is similar, right down to the lines that seemingly make no sense on first listen but when broken down actually have some legit meaning.
But that’s not really the reason I’m bringing it up here. It’s because I’m wondering if there was any other album in the ’80s on which the biggest hit was track 20! 3 Feet High almost seems like a rap album from this decade, with a skit between every song (hell, they have two in a row at points), but even so, “Me, Myself and I,” a #1 rap hit and De La Soul’s only Top 40 hit (until they backed the Gorillaz on “Feel Good Inc.” in 2005), is buried all the way down at track 20.
I still think the album is excellent, despite the fact it felt like a decade had passed by the time I got to “Me, Myself and I,” but it really got me wondering if there was another track in the entire decade buried that far down on a disc. Greatest-hits and multiple-disc sets don’t count — I’m talking a single disc where the biggest hit was that far down. Hell, even just a single that was that far down on an album. Better yet, name any big hit that far down on a normal LP in any decade. It might have happened more frequently in the past decade on rap albums, but I still think it’s a pretty rare feat.
Welcome back to CHART ATTACK!, all new for 2009! This year we’ll be doing much like we’ve done in the past: ripping apart Billboard Top 10 charts for years ranging from the early ’70s to the early ’90s. You know the drill: some of ‘em are going to be great; some will be abysmal; some will feature way too many appearances by stupid Andy Gibb. (Not this week — just his brothers.)
This week, we’re looking at early 1983, a fairly diverse week featuring punk, pop, R&B, adult contemporary and whatever category you want to stick “Dirty Laundry” into. Also, here are a few of the odd words you’ll find in this week’s chart: Sharif, Serengeti, she-cat, and Vegemite. We’re also featuring three songs that, in some way or another, essentially were given a second chance on the charts this week. Which ones? Stay tuned as we attack January 15, 1983!
“Africa” holds my spot for the best song on this relatively solid Top 10, but “Heartbreaker” is in second place. It has very little to do with Dionne Warwick; while her vocal is fine, I think I’d also be okay with a number of other female vocalists singing. It’s more about the chorus, which is not only unmistakably catchy but contains just the right amount of Bee Gees — the fantastic backing vocals with none of the ridiculous falsetto wailing that Barry prefers to use at every turn. And once again we have to give credit to Mr. Gibb for wisely handing out his songs to other vocalists at a time when the Bee Gees were certainly less welcome on the charts. This one wasn’t initially his idea, though: in ‘82, Barry had planned on collaborating with a few different female vocalists for an album he was working on, but Clive Davis asked him if he’d write an album of material for Warwick. He did so, and though Warwick didn’t really care for “Heartbreaker,” she recorded it anyway — and it wound up being her biggest solo hit of the decade. I can’t believe I love “Heartbreaker” more than Dionne Warwick. Anyway, the Bee Gees eventually recorded their own version in 2002:
The original demo can also be found on YouTube (or on iTunes). Beware, though: Barry sings the whole thing utilizing the aforementioned falsetto wailing.
9. Rock the Casbah — The Clash
One can only imagine what Joe Strummer thought about spending time in the Top 10 next to Dionne Warwick. Even worse, only a few weeks later he’d wind up stuck next to Eddie Rabbitt and Crystal Gayle. The Clash’s Top 40 singles were far and few between — we’re talking this one and “Train in Vain (Stand By Me).” (”Should I Stay or Should I Go” reached #45.)
“Rock the Casbah” was born out of a piano part composed by drummer Topper Headon, and it’s Headon who plays bass, drums and piano on the track. The origins of the lyrics have been disputed, but the story I’ve heard the most is that Strummer was inspired by a news report of Iranians being flogged for owning disco music. I don’t see why that’s so wrong.
Hey everybody! Just think: one week from now, you’ll probably be feeling full and somewhat nauseous from all the food you’ve ingested. I say, why wait a week? Get that nauseous feeling right now as we tackle the Billboard Top 10 from November 24, 1984!
10. I Just Called to Say I Love You — Stevie WonderAmazoniTunes 9. Penny Lover — Lionel RichieAmazoniTunes 8. All Through the Night — Cyndi LauperAmazoniTunes 7. Strut — Sheena EastonAmazoniTunes 6. Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run) — Billy OceanAmazoniTunes 5. Better Be Good to Me — Tina TurnerAmazoniTunes 4. Out of Touch — Daryl Hall and John OatesAmazoniTunes 3. I Feel For You — Chaka KhanAmazoniTunes 2. Purple Rain — Prince and the RevolutionAmazoniTunes 1. Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go — Wham!AmazoniTunes
10. I Just Called to Say I Love You — Stevie Wonder
It’s funny ’cause it’s true! There are, sadly, a lot of people out there who think of this song when they think of Stevie Wonder, and seriously, that pains me. You know who I’m talking about. You probably work with them.
Barry asks another important question here: “Is it, in fact, unfair to criticize a formerly great artist for his latter day sins?” No, it’s not. Stevie Wonder may be a musical genius, but it doesn’t mean I have to love everything he’s ever released. “I Just Called to Say I Love You” is actually a well-written song. It’s poppy, it’s catchy, and the sentiment is simple, yet original. However, none of this changes the fact that this is song comes nowhere near the caliber of his work from the ’70s. And I’m still on the fence as to whether I give him credit or points off for the cha-cha-cha ending.
When I hear this song today (and I try not to), this is what I usually think about:
When you’re on fire like Lionel Richie in 1984, you can do whatever the hell you want. You can write a song called “Penny Lover,” which is not actually about somebody who loves pennies, or even about someone who loves girls named Penny. And you can sit back and watch your song reach the Top 10, without batting an eye. That being said, “Penny Lover” peaked at #8 and thus became Richie’s lowest-charting solo single to date. This doesn’t seem so bad until you realize that he co-wrote the song with his wife, Brenda, and you just know that Lionel got the shit kicked out of him for that one. “You write a song with ‘Tam bo li de say de moi ya” and it goes to #1, but my song stalls at #8? Go outside and find me a switch!”
A selection of “Findings” from the back page of Harper’s Magazine, June 2008.
Scottish scientists found that women are instinctively attracted to the faces of men who want long-term relationships, whereas men are instinctively attracted to the faces of women who want one-night stands; French bio-statisticians declared Caucasian women to be more attractive than Caucasian men; a computer learned to identify beauty in Caucasian women; and a team of European sexologists reported that 40 percent of Italian couples were not having sex, due in part to Italian men’s declining sex drive and growing predilection for prostitutes and cybersex. (The Bar-Kays, “Sexomatic [12" Mix]” [download])
Students exposed to subliminal Apple logos were found to answer questions more creatively than subjects exposed to subliminal IBM logos.
Marine biologists revealed that male Abdopus aculeatus octopuses may strangle to death rivals in defending the females whom they have seduced by swimming in a feminine manner, and paleontologists discovered that sexual reproduction first appeared about 600 million years ago among tube-shaped creatures living in spats on the seafloor. The gonorrhea bacterium was determined to be the strongest organism in existence. (Yeasayer, “Germs” [download])(more…)
It’s been an arduous couple of weeks for me in terms of my music listening. Do What You Want, Be What You Are: The Music of Daryl Hall and John Oates, is the third four-disc box set (after Big Star: Keep An Eye On the Sky, and Where the Action Is! L.A. Nuggets 1965 – 1968 ) that I’ve reviewed in that period. I don’t know if this is true for other writers, but reviewing large collections like these is more difficult for me than reviewing single albums. You are forced to stay focused on one artist or genre for an extended period of time. My attention span just doesn’t work that way naturally. But enough bitching about my relatively minuscule concerns.
Last month we brought you 
Me: You two have been making music together for nearly 40 years. What do you consider to be the secret to your success?
Three years later, in what could only be considered a case of having your cake and eating it too, MacManus returned on a new label, Warner Bros., with a look vaguely similar to his feral Buddy Holly, only this time he was painted like a ghastly harlequin, beheaded, and mounted on a royal blue WB logo frame, a placard beneath the bizarre tableau reading “The Beloved Entertainer.” Here lies the genius of Elvis Costello, giving the public what they wanted AND the middle finger at the same time, for the album 
