Fifty songs from Hall & Oates packaged into one definite guide
Introduction
Those who question exactly the reasons behind the inductions of Daryl Hall and John Oates into the Rock and Roll Music Hall of Fame are in need of a serious reality check. For starters, they are the best-selling duo of all time with seven platinum albums, sic gold-certified albums and an astounding thirty-four chart hits on the Billboard Hot 100. At the peak of their powers, they were the faces of MTV and showed no signs of stopping. They have landed on the cover of Rolling Stone. Billboard magazine called them the most successful duo of the rock age, surpassing the Everly Brothers. And their power and influence could be felt throughout a list of genres, including hip-hop, New Wave, soft rock and R&B. Proving that, in 2009, a glowing four-disc box set, Do What You Want, Be Who You Are: The Music of Daryl Hall & John Oates, contained a diverse list of fans writing their echoes of praise: Mick Jagger, Todd Rundgren, Rick Nielsen, Smokey Robinson, Otis Williams, Dave Stewart, Ben Gibbard, Travis McCoy, Rob Thomas, Patrick Stump, Nile Rodgers and Carly Simon.
For years, Philadelphia-bred duo Hall & Oates have been embarrassingly described as blue-eyed soul survivors. Their skin color may be of a different hue than Otis and Aretha, but the talented pair deserve to sit in the same company. They understand how Motown and Stax works; they know a thing or two about Gamble & Huff’s string-laden Philly soul blueprint; they knew about doo-wop and hooligans and unorthodox jukeboxes before Bruno Mars made it his trademark.
And so, for all of those reasons, HiFi has decided to outline fifty of the greatest H&O songs of all time. Stretching all the way back to their Atlantic sessions and journeying through the course of indie album releases, solo projects and more – here’s our compilation of Hall & Oates at their best.
