duran duran vs. hall and oates

yeah this will be close

hall & oates are the steely dan of the 80's

steely dan are the hall and oates of the 70s

Not even close for me. Daryl & John all the way.

Cannot comprehend the idea of voting for H&O over Duran.

Can't comprehend voting for Duran Duran unless it is a video contest.

I hope this is the Prince vs. The Smiths of 2010.

CULTURE WARS, vol. 356

i really like a few duran duran singles, but h&o rule the roost. first concert i ever went to (ooh yeah! tour)

cue snide bullshit about how ppl only enjoy h&o "ironically"

http://mamrie.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/hall_oates_program.jpg
http://musicmuleblog.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/duranduran.jpg

I love some H&O but I dunno if they ever wrote anything as genuinely weird and absorbing (to me, anyway) as The Chauffeur

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElLCpVN37hs

there's your weirdness.

I love Rio more than any one H&O album, but Voices-Private Eyes-H20-Big Bam Boom is one hell of a sequence – certainly superior to Duran's run – plus seventies outliers like Along the Red Ledge and Abandoned Luncheonette make this no contest.

oooh tough one. both are seriously great (and tbf they both have their fare share of mediocrity). i certainly listen to more H&O these days and i guess H&O have 2-3 songs that i love more than any of my favorite Duran Duran.

hall & oates. no contest.

These two bands loomed large over my childhood. At the height of their popularity, Duran Duran was my favorite band (and my first big concert) and Hall and Oates was my mom's favorite band.

I've grown to respect Hall and Oates over the years, but I am compelled to vote for my music over my mom's.

Had Daryl Hall produced Duran after Rio the fivesome would've been in better shape.

An intriguing thought...

No contest. "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" probably the best R&B song of the 80s. At least in the top 5.

hall & oates. no contest.

Hall & Oates!

H&O in a landslide (I hope).

H&O have done a couple of neat pop songs.

Duran Duran have done dozens.

This is piss easy.

Even if we stick to the '80s hits I care about, this is a matter of:

"Kiss on my List"
"You Make My Dreams"
"Private Eyes"
"Did It in a Minute"
"I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)"
"One on One"
"Say It Isn't So"
"Adult Education"
"Method of Modern Love"

vs.

"Girls on Film"
"Hungry Like the Wolf"
"Rio"
"Save a Prayer"
"Is There Something I Should Know"
"Union of the Snake"

In 1983, this wouldn't have been a choice: Duran Duran. Now, it's Hall and Oates.

anyone who votes for hall and oates is dumb.

sorry.

you are dumb.

Duran Duran singles up until the Notorious album are pretty solid:

"Planet Earth"
"Careless Memories"
"Girls on Film"
"My Own Way"
"Hungry Like the Wolf"
"Save a Prayer"
"Rio"
"Is There Something I Should Know?"
"Union of the Snake"
"New Moon on Monday"
"The Reflex"
"The Wild Boys"
"A View to a Kill"

well maybe those last two are stretching it a little bit. solid band nonetheless.

i think it might be time to seek out some Hall and Oates however.

"maneater" and "private eyes" are kinda awesome, but come on, union of the snake alone and bonus round wild boys beats u.

hall and oates

not even close

no

"Ordinary World" is pretty good.

^ugh no

my favorite thing about ILM is the unrelenting, unapologetic Hall and Oates fandom that runs rampant.

Who can forget "Out of Touch," perhaps my favourite H&O song ever.

I wanted to do a shoegaze cover of that song, a while back.

That said, DD all the way and jj otm and etc, fuck all u ironic yacht rock dix

maybe those last two are stretching it a little bit.

Not in my book. View to a Kill and Wild Boys are superlative chunks of widescreen technopop. I will also rep for the Notorious singles and even some that came later - in particular, All She Wants Is.

was H&O a 'thing' in Britain?

A few hits, but as an entity with a following, not really iirc.

well sorry for my British vote then

but you guys fucked with Rio once too often when you failed to put it inside your 80's top motherfucking HUNDRED

Duran for me, but from the Reflex onwards they were pretty terrible.

Hall & Oates never did The Power Station.

Duran Duran only released one album and it was perfect. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I spent the 80s loving both of these bands to death, and pretty much still do. (I had Private Eyes on lol 8 track!) At first I thought to myself, "Well, all I'd really need from D2 is the greatest hits, whereas H&O can go pretty deep," but that's not right at all. Non-single D2 tracks I'd miss out on that I love -- "Friends Of Mine," "Last Chance On The Stairway," "Of Crime & Passion," "New Religion," "Careless Memories" -- are pretty much matched with H&O deep cuts ("Italian Girls," "Mano A Mano," "Unguarded Minute," "Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid"). This is a tougher choice than I thought, but I think I've gotta go with D2.

The album tracks on Big Thing were pretty good too.

(duran duran duran vs joyce carol oates ...just a thought)

Speaking of "ironic dix," I love how people still have this idea that Duran Duran were, you know, any good at all.

Even though Hall & Oates did have their moments, this is Duran Duran all the way.

I love some H&O but I dunno if they ever wrote anything as genuinely weird and absorbing (to me, anyway) as The Chauffeur

^^

the thing is that I always kind of hated hall & oates, something about them just annoyed me, but the actual songs are pretty hard to argue against. duran duran's songs otoh are kinda incoherent messes buoyed by 1) fun 80s production and 2) the inherent silliness of the effort ("I know guys - we'll kinda 'scratch' that 're' on 'reflex,' you know, "re-re-re-re-flex.' then, we will sing the following lyric, with a more or less straight face: 'every little thing the reflex does leaves you answered with a question mark.' it'll be awesome and we'll all get high") which you know has its charms but

just in terms of the tunes themselves I'm kinda mystified at how any post-Planet Earth Durhan Durhan can be thought of as in the same league with pop jams like "Rich Girl" or "Kiss on My List" or "Say It Isn't So" you know?

planet earth was really good electro-disco. girls on film less so. afer that it was all downhill. though rio did continue the yacht rock tradition admirably. and was less boring than a japan album. but, really, duran duran were not in the same league as human league or depeche mode, two groups who produced profoundly great singles in the 80's (and important singles too as far as the evolution of dance music goes). but i'd still vote for hall & oates over depeche mode or human league. and i love 80's depeche mode and human league.

The reason people rate DD is because they are dance-oriented and the group is a positive aspect of their youth. They are clever and fun even if their songs aren't stronger.

Bands that inspired DD > Hall and Oates > DD

Who were the bands that inspired Duran Duran?

I don't mind some Duran Duran, but it's really no contest for me: Hall & Oates.

Roxy Music for one.

But why does everyone always bring up 80s Hall & Oates when their best songs were from the 70s? (Because they don't agree, most likely, I know.)

I do. I just played "When the Morning Comes" at home. Fuckin love that song.

Who were the bands that inspired Duran Duran?

Roxy Music for one.

Chic is another

Incidentally, they play "Rio" on oldies stations here in Albuquerque all the time. I assume this is unusual for US oldies radio and is thanks to the Rio Grande allusion.

duran duran's songs otoh are kinda incoherent

OTM. Worst lyricists of the Eighties?

Gary Kemp gives them a run for their money

among the worst lyricists of the decade's big acts, certainly. wild boys, never lose it.

Now see, something I always loved about DD is that Le Bon's lyrics typically didn't tread the same romantic-misadventure wagon rut as, oh, almost every other rock/pop band ever. Sure, they're frequently loopy, sometimes clumsy, but at least it's not the same old "You left me and I want to die" spiel that we've been listening to since 1920. Yes, he's responsible for a couple of howlers, but at his best (Save a Prayer, The Chauffeur), he managed the rare trick of being both strikingly original and genuinely affecting.
In any case, I'm not going to be told that Hall or Oates were better lyricists.

my cat is a better lyricist than whoever was writing for Duran Duran

"In any case, I'm not going to be told that Hall or Oates were better lyricists."

Hall & Oates were better lyricists.

Now you're just being provocative.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

the idea of a "couple of neat pop songs." = vomiting

But why does everyone always bring up 80s Hall & Oates when their best songs were from the 70s? (Because they don't agree, most likely, I know.)

And I agree with this (i.e Sarah Smile, She's Gone, et al)

I prefer the eighties H&O because they found a musical correlative for their increasing nastiness. Hall's excellent pitch and range aren't very warm, which isolates him from every soul man he he stole from. The key lyric is in the excellent Gamble-Huff-esque single "I Don't Want To Lose You": "people have a tragic habit of letting love get in the way." From that moment on Daryl Hall acts like some kind of sleaze: leave him alone he's a family man, but can we fuck one more time before I throw you out of the house? Not even Duran was this cold.

Also: H&O used Fairlights, MIDI, and echo a lot more interestingly and successfully than Double D.

Gary Kemp gives them a run for their money

oh man I've never recovered from hearing "She rides the soul train while he fights the law" from "Lifeline."

i couldn't believe how good war babies sounded to me a couple weeks ago. what a cool-ass rock record. todd + H&O = thumbs up!

"You're Much Too Soon" is great.

here's part of the spandau review I wrote when their greatest hits came out - their inscrutability is kind of my most potent muse

Spandau Ballet began life as part of the post-punk proliferation of dance-oriented bands with chilly synthesizers and angular haircuts, taking its cues from Roxy Music -- smooth, cool, sensuous-but-civilized -- but added a noteworthy flourish in the lyrics department. Gold: The Best of Spandau Ballet reminds us that Spandau Ballet is perhaps the only band ever to have reached and retained mainstream viability on the merits of songs whose lyrics cannot under any circumstances be forced to bear meaning. Take this, from "True": "Always slipping from my hands/Sand's a time of its own/Take your seaside arms and write the next line/Oh I want the truth to be known/I know this much is true." Huh? Or take the title "She Loved Like Diamond," or the deeply puzzling bridge to the chorus of "Lifeline": "You never really know just what you're giving till you're living on the lifeline." It's not that you don't get it; it's that there simply isn't anything to get.

This very impenetrability, though, is what makes Spandau Ballet a truly great and timeless band and what makes the release of this best-of collection a real occasion. These songs slide languidly through the speakers and insinuate themselves into the room like a house's former occupants, never really there but never fully absent. Their synth drums and slick effects call to us from our fairly recent past like voices from the grave. What is going on in these songs? Were they really popular? (The chart positions noted on the sleeve indicate that they were.) Is there any way of finding out what they were actually about? The more you listen, the deeper the mystery gets, and by the end of the album, as we drift through the celestial "Through the Barricades," we find ourselves surfing waves of gorgeously decorated, utterly empty language: "Yes I know what they're saying/As our sun begins to fade/We made our love on wasteland/And through the barricades." Acoustic guitars send trembling notes through the ether as Tony Hadley's perfect voice soars into the upper air. We may never know what was going on back then, but at least we have this relic to puzzle over.

I would have hired you to join my magazine, aero.

i say lyrically bush were the most incomprehensible band of the 90's. don't know who it is now. the 80's had a lot of contenders. but spandau, yeah, as long as you don't listen too closely everything sounds fine!

I heard "Family Man" while I was out at dinner tonight. I'm changing my vote.

Some choice Le Bon bons:

"My head is full of chopstick/I don't like it"

"I'll cross that bridge when I find it"

"Funny, it's just like a scene out of Voltaire/Twisting out of sight"

feels like we are ganging up on the brits, but i have to share one of my fave bush lyrics:

i don't mind this
barefoot again
just a skin full
what we choose to forget
thinking you know
thinking you see all sides
casting a stone from your hand
yeah right
hell is where the heart is
synapse again
nothing more i can do
i have not done again
only worded nothing wrong
taking a cue from seven days
i bet you never listen
burning holes in all your clothes
razorblade suitcase
all the tricks of the trade
favourite ways you can lose
favourite ways you can hate
hell is where the heart is
synapse again

kinda brings a tear to my eye. i studied their lyrics for hours once. endlessly fascinating. um, to me.

"My head is full of chopstick/I don't like it"

oh man

slb bringing his a game to the table here

srsly "My head is full of chopstick/I don't like it."

Wow.

I mean -- WOW.

from the dept. of awesome Bush lyrics:

"should I fly to Los Angeles / find my asshole brother"

that's not bad actually!

Christgau on Le Bon: "lyrics that rearrange received language from several levels of discourse into a noncommital private doggerel"

"Funny, it's just like a scene out of Voltaire/Twisting out of sight"

as you and I have both said this song goes on to have some of the best middle-eight lyrics ever

I kinda really like most of the lyrics on Rio - sure they're a bit silly at times but they were burned onto my mind young and they still prick my imagination

Yeah, that middle-eight or whatever ("Could be the atmosphere sinking...") is real pretty.

Christgau on Le Bon: "lyrics that rearrange received language from several levels of discourse into a noncommital private doggerel"

lol @ xgau doing in 15 words what I have expended no fewer than 12,000 of them over two essays to attempt

Who were the bands that inspired Duran Duran?

Roxy Music for one.

Chic is another

And Bowie. Probably also Japan to some extent even though they were slightly more contemporary.

But why does everyone always bring up 80s Hall & Oates when their best songs were from the 70s?

Because "Out Of Touch", "Maneater" and "Method Of Modern Love" were not from the 70s. :)

Great album track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTi0qtaXbkY

considering duran duran seemed to have based their entire first two albums on different variations of the main riff from "quiet life" i'd say "to some extent" is a slight understatement

not to mention the fact that nick rhodes clearly wanted to be david sylvian

i like hall and oates a lot but i'd take "the chauffeur" over their entire recorded output in a heartbeat

Because "Out Of Touch", "Maneater" and "Method Of Modern Love" were not from the 70s. :)

Anyone with an ear for melody would recognize that "Sara Smile" and "She's Gone" are stronger in that department.

sara smile and she's gone are near perfect. the only reason they aren't perfect is because if they were it would offend god. so, one mistake was placed in each song, but not in a place that you can see. they are, like, in the attic or the basement.

Pretty much agree there.

scott, I think our taste in music begins to converge once the clock is turned back to the 70s. After that it's hit or miss. I was shocked for some reason when I saw your name under that past (not that I wouldn't expect you to like those songs but not so strongly).

(Well okay you probably like even more 70s stuff than I do, because I am kind of fussy, but it's probably the decade I'm least fussy about.)

i yelled at john oates once in front of his family when i was a drunk teenager and its one of the most embarrassing memories of my life.

I participate in polls all the time, but never really care about the results. This is not one of those times. If Duran Duran somehow manages to win this, I will be genuinely offended.

lol. i love hall & oates. i do wonder why they've so captured ilx's "special attention."

But why does everyone always bring up 80s Hall & Oates when their best songs were from the 70s?

kinda agree with this, but i'll nominate some things (are better left unsaid) (1985) for consideration as their best song.

I love both '70s and '80s Daryl & John. I even love the album from 1990. I haven't heard anything more recent than that, though. I have heard Duran Duran material more recent than that, though, and it's pretty piss poor. But what I think is good Duran Duran and what other people think is good Duran Duran routinely turns out to be much different (for example, my favorite DD record is Big Thing).

is the 1990 album ohh yeah? i like that one, too.

It's Change of Season.

i do wonder why they've so captured ilx's "special attention."

For me, they just go back to childhood days before much real musical self-consciousness. I don't know what the explanation is for other ilxors's fondness for them.

Er, no -- I discovered their records only five or six years ago.

Suggest Ban Permalink

i yelled at john oates once in front of his family when i was a drunk teenager and its one of the most embarrassing memories of my life.

― scott seward, Saturday, July 3, 2010 11:20 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

: O

Scott! What did you yell at Oates?

scott asked Oates what the hell he was doing on an Icehouse record.

h&o were, in a way, sort of a high-point of early/mid-80s pop. they made nice, enjoyable songs that seemingly everyone (hip or not) could enjoy on some level -- "your kiss on my list" for housewives, "you're out of touch" for kids -- but no-one really swooned over them the way they swooned over, i dunno, Springsteen or the Smiths. so yeah, childhood memories have something to do with it. finding out that darryl hall had a much cooler background than suspected (e.g., working w/ Robert Fripp on his solo record) came much later (and certainly was not emphasized during the H&O salad days).

duran duran were the group that yer little sister liked -- and she liked 'em because they were cute. back in the day, i would write off their interviews where they said that they were "serious musicians" as so much hooey. 20 years later, of course, it became a bit more acceptable for hetero males to admit to enjoying their virtues (and there were many) and to say, "yeah -- these guys may have been pretty boys, but they put out some damn good songs. maybe this 'sex pistols meets chic' thing IS spot-on!"

i voted for H&O, BTW

I vaguely remember a younger female cousin liking Duran Duran and getting teased about it (probably by her older brother who tended to be very conventional and liked to rib her about stuff from that vantage point: "That's not real dancing," in response to her break-dancing efforts, etc.) and me standing up for them ("Reflex is good"--and that remains my favorite song of theirs). Actually, this could easily be a composite of a few different memories. This would have been when I was in high school, I guess, or maybe when I was in college (sorry I don't even know exactly when their songs came out). (I also remember that female cousin playing the opening to Purple Rain over and over again on the beach. I kind of wish we hadn't lost touch. I definitely think I had more in common with her than her stodgy jock older brother, though he and I got along great until we were teens.)

(I was probably in college judging by release dates, which makes sense, since I didn't ease up much on college radio snobbery until I was in college. Duran Duran would probably have been too pop for me in high school.)

Also: H&O used Fairlights, MIDI, and echo a lot more interestingly and successfully than Double D.

That is an intriguing claim. Could I ask you to cite some examples?

hall & oates. no contest.

― a lagoon par la mer (psychgawsple), Tuesday, June 29, 2010 1:35 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"Say It Isn't So," "Adult Education," the entirety of Big Bam Boom. This Arthur Baker collaboration with which the album begins would not have been out of place as a New Order single:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHGyDzfst5s

yeah i was wondering about that. rock critic has no idea about electronic music production syndrome?

xp

guys this is easy to check without being snotty

http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:kiftxqu5ldfe~T2

Clive Smith Synthesizer, Fairlight CMI
Jimmy Bralower Synthesizer, Drums, Saxophone, Linn Drum
Arthur Baker Composer, Producer, Mixing Consultant
Jimmy Bralower Synthesizer, Drums, Saxophone, Linn Drum

Jimmy Bralower workin overtime it seems

that was the 1st album i ever begged by parents to buy for me. i was captivated by "method of modern love". those horn riffs kinda freaked me out.

there's a latin rascals radio show dj set that i found... somewhere... that has them doing their thing with "out of touch". really amazing, i think they pitch it down slightly so it's even heavier.

i sort of feel like H&O basically already encompass everything DD ever really did -- tho i don't think H&O ever had those great sequencer arpeggios running through everything -- and H&O have all this other stuff on offer as well

srsly check out how beautiful the first minute and a half are: as good as the eighties got. Arthur BAker's the consultant, but what's remarkable is that all their big eighties records were self-produced; they knew what was going on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzzRuNwAAWs

I need to go back and listen again to a bunch of old stuff and listen more completely to the catalogs of some bands I only know in part. I just reminded myself of what "The Reflex" sounds like it, and it's actually a lot better and more interesting than I'd remembered. (Meanwhile, I wonder what I'm missing by not really knowing Hall & Oates as an album band.)

Happy 4th of July from Hall and Oates! They made the Big Bam Boom stuff work live too.

Live in Liberty City

guys this is easy to check without being snotty

No snottiness here! I'm very willing to be schooled on H&O's production chops. I freely admit to only being familiar with their biggest hits, and will be checking out Lord Sotosyn's suggestions.

I just searched youtube for some Duran Duran and one of the related videos is about Eckankar which I associate strongly with the 80s. Funny.

John Oates: You might--you might remember this one. (sings) "Private eyes, (claps) they're watching you. (claps twice)" That was all me. The clapping part. I wasn't actually the one who uh, clapped, but um, it was my idea. To clap. [Hall & Oates' "Maneater" starts to play] I didn't really sing, or play guitar that well. So. (pause) I'm Oates.

Anyone with an ear for melody would recognize that "Sara Smile" and "She's Gone" are stronger in that department.

I'd rather say they leave more room for improvisation, which may be good to some, less good to others.

Also: H&O used Fairlights, MIDI, and echo a lot more interestingly and successfully than Double D.

Double D were at their best in the good old early 80s, when Fairlights and MIDI didn't exist. Which didn't matter because the good old analogue synths have always sounded better.

That Oates comment is easy lolz. He co-wrote most of the major songs, wrote and sang more than a few himself, and was a better instrumentalist than he gave himself credit for.

"Method Of Modern Love" is all John Oates.

No -- "How Does It Feel To Be Back" is all Oates.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

yeah this will be close

hall and oates 71
duran duran 31

Uh huh.

wow lotta silent voters

How did this happen?!

anyone who votes for hall and oates is dumb.

sorry.

you are dumb.

― BEAROTAURDED (jjjusten), Saturday, July 3, 2010 2:13 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

OTM.

My people have spoken!

How did this happen?!

Sense prevailed.

Booooooooo. Then sense sucks imo.

god bless America!!

what the fucking fuck

ye gods. figured H&O would take it, but the margin is insane

what the fucking fuck indeed

it's as i figured. ilx loves hall & oates.

H&O love is a common denominator here in ILM land (esp. among american ILMers). more so than just about anything else, now that i really think about it -- which is fascinating in itself.

h&o vs. the smiths

I think they could possibly win that

i prefer the smiths, but i don't like the odds here on ilx, tbh.

a good college friend of mine (who is NOT an ILXor) was a bit puzzled by my own H&O love. said good college friend was into all of the hip/indie music of the day (the day being the late 80s/early-mid 90s). said friend also does not live in a city where it became OK to admit to liking (nay, loving) hall and oates and not have yer "indie credentials" called into question -- plus he just doesn't really like H&O pop anyway.

he'd be right at home w/ the steely dan/fleetwood mac freaks here, though.

steely dan v. hall & oates would be an interesting ILM poll, i think.

I'd rather say they leave more room for improvisation, which may be good to some, less good to others.

― Tied Up In Geir (Geir Hongro), Sunday, July 4, 2010 5:55 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

a journey into the mind of Geir Hongro always leaves one with certain treasures ...

a good college friend of mine (who is NOT an ILXor) was a bit puzzled by my own H&O love. said good college friend was into all of the hip/indie music of the day (the day being the late 80s/early-mid 90s). said friend also does not live in a city where it became OK to admit to liking (nay, loving) hall and oates and not have yer "indie credentials" called into question -- plus he just doesn't really like H&O pop anyway.

This is waaaay too much qualification for me. Does he even like music?

yeah, he loves music -- and if he chose to come onboard to ILM, he'd be right at home here. he just doesn't love hall & oates and is puzzled why it's become even vaguely hip to like them.

"Hip" has jack shit to do with it. Songs do. They have 'em, DD don't. The end.

I think Steely Dan would take Hall & Oates in a walk, but I think the knives will come out if Steely Dan was ever put up against Fleetwood Mac or say The Smiths.

ftr i did not vote in this

i saw H&O perform after a baseball game recently, it was aight.

I think Steely Dan would take Hall & Oates in a walk, but I think the knives will come out if Steely Dan was ever put up against Fleetwood Mac or say The Smiths.

― earlnash, Monday, July 5, 2010 1:27 AM (10 hours ago)

Steely Dan vs. Fleetwood Mac

you guys it's really simple

duran duran is terrible

it's fun to remember how one eventually developed an immunity to how terrible they were & even came to enjoy them on some level, but really now, what horrible music they made

yes they made a lot of horrible music but that wasn't really Duran Duran, DD broke up after writing an absolutely perfect record and their corpses were reanimated by an evil torturer whose remit was to offend the hopes of millions

like, I would LOVE to see an honest-to-every-conceivable-deity argument from aerosmith about how Rio is comprised of 'horrible music'

forgetting about rio for just a second - "notorious" is such a frakkin' stellar groove

imo it doesn't take much of an argument

Rio -- this is a quality jam
My Own Way -- unconscionable planet earth remake, don't bite own joeks DD
Lonely in Your Nightmare -- this is the sort of half-assedness that would make them rich, but that doesn't mean I have to like it
Hungry Like the Wolf -- verses A+, chorus B
Hold Back the Rain -- vocal take sounds like it was spliced together from stuff they'd hoped to throw away
New Religion -- let's be honest, nobody remembers this song
Last Chance on the Stairway -- this one either
Save a Prayer -- everybody remembers this one because they hate it so much
The Chauffeur -- this is a great song, if I had been David Sylvian at the time I would have sued them for every penny they were worth

New Religion -- let's be honest, nobody remembers this song
Last Chance on the Stairway -- this one either

hahahahaha oh wow I just cannot

perhaps I'm irrational because I had that entire record burned onto my mind as a kid, but there's nothing about it that doesn't fill me with intense joy - I can even isolate all the great moments and why they are so great, if you want?

Last Chance On The Stairway is my favourite song on the album btw

louis, as you are the guy I consider possibly the most insightful reader of poetry on ilx, I implore you not to ruin it for me by saying so much as one word in defense of this album's lyrics

Who can forget "Out of Touch," perhaps my favourite H&O song ever.

Whoops, I didn't mean to leave that off my list.

I'm open to getting back into Duran Duran, but just never heard anything after "Is There Something I Should Know" that got me as excited about them.

xpost--haven't listened to Rio in 20 years and still remember all those songs.

I wasn't going to defend the lyrics! I've already said something nice about the middle-eight of LCOTS' lyrics upthread, because even in their inanity they create a lovely moment, but the great moments come largely from bass and synths.

In isolation this album's lyrics would be hysterical dreck, I'm not even gonna think about disputing that one.

Oh, and "Hungry Like the Wolf" has a great chorus! And with orgasmic '80s moaning on the fade-out! Let's not talk nonsense.

trying to figure out how to say this without sounding like an asshole but oh well, too late - i honestly thought that all the neo-hall and oates lovers ive run into lately were motivated 100% by wink wink nudge nudge "oh arent we terribly clever for embracing this horrible garbage" peeps (uh in fact i know that some of the hall and oates theme nights that have popped up are EXACTLY that), and i expect that isnt the case with most ilxors, so now i just dont know what to think.

fuck hall and oates tho, if i never heard them again it would be a blessing.

Let's not talk nonsense.

somebody should have told Simon LeBon this AM I RIGHT OR WHAT

Duran Duran seem to me much more like likely candidates for a somewhat ironic appreciation (than Hall & Oates) thanks to their campiness and ridiculousness.

i honestly thought that all the neo-hall and oates lovers ive run into lately were motivated 100% by wink wink nudge nudge "oh arent we terribly clever for embracing this horrible garbage" peeps

I think I arbitrarily hated Hall & Oates in "my indie years" a.k.a. I won't listen to something unless the singer is unpalatably nasal, motherfuck a radio. But there was some sort of countdown on VH1 (this was eight or nine years ago, and I watched these with a profound dedication) on which "I Can't Go For That" appeared.

Two goofy dudes pulling a bright groove out of some synths is the current zeitgeist, I think, but even then, the funk and Hall's voice seized me entirely, all cold, distant smoke and light. I think it's sort of undeniable! (Though it is, of course, entirely deniable.)

Also the first time I listened to Rio my evaluation wholly mirrored aero's.

I enjoy Rio at the level of a pulp novel: it's zippy, purple, and indefensible on most levels, except the ones that count. I adore most every song except "The Chauffeur" -- I don't care for David Sylvian or David Sylvian imitations, and that line about the aphids swarming up in the drifting haze is the kind of poetry meant to excite high school girls looking for yearbook quotes.

i expect that isnt the case with most ilxors, so now i just dont know what to think.

I'll tell you what to think: love H&O.

i don't think its hard to understand at all why people would like hall & oates. you would have to be kind of dense to NOT understand this. "dense" was the nicest word i could think of...

I feel like anybody who's feeling skeptical about the results should just put on "she's gone" and crank it - all doubts will be swept away by the time the final chorus comes on

Soto sayin' it there, but I gotta add that some of the synth timbres, basslines and melodic switch-ups are genuinely brilliant - and as much to do with what's unsaid as what's said - often they create a gorgeous moment by leaving something out. I'd argue they intrinsically know how to write a thrilling song within a certain synthpop mode (the album seems so effortless!) and they milk that mode for all it's worth.

I need to hear more H&O.

You realize you could be describing the entirety of the Private Eyes and Big Bam Boom albums, right?

OK ok I'll give 'em a spin

apposite thread: Taking Sides: "Dare" Vs. "The Lexicon Of Love" Vs. "Rio" Vs. "Tin Drum" Vs. "New Gold Dream"

(am a massive Rio + New Gold Dream fan, haven't rly heard the other two or H&O)

*other three

"Hip" has jack shit to do with it. Songs do. They have 'em, DD don't. The end.

― Mexico, camp, horns, Zappa, Mr. Bungle (Matos W.K.), Sunday, July 4, 2010 10:12 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

weird, though, how people think H&O love has to be an "ironic" hipster appreciation of yacht rock (or whatever). while it's perfectly reasonable to unironically embrace duran duran's vacuous pillow talk? i don't get it. how is the one any more egregious than the other? can see as how DD's sexual allure is more convincing, but it's also pretty ridiculous, and H&O's deliberate goofiness is charming. there's less pressure involved.

i never thought of hall & oates as yacht rock. i think of, say, firefall, benie mardonis, the guys who sing i want to kiss you (all over) and magnet and steel as "yacht rock." basically the 40-year olds who saunter up to the 19-year old at the bar, creepily offering to buy them a drink and talk about good times. hall & oates were just infectious pop.

to buy "her," i meant, tho i guess with "yacht rockers," they might try to seduce multiple 19-year olds at the same time.

Forgot to vote in this, would've given Duran Duran another point - I love what I know of Hall & Oates (a couple of albums and the big singles) but I've got more of an attachment to Duran as my gateway into '80s new pop/whatever long after the fact (via my younger brother who got really into them when 'Ordinary World' came out, then Japan and a load of other stuff from that era). I will never not have fond memories of Rio the album, however stupid the lyrics are ('Hold Back The Rain' came up on shuffle the other day and I'd say more or less every line is worse than "You're about as easy as a nuclear war").

New Religion -- let's be honest, nobody remembers this song

It's one of my favorite songs on the record! It's got a killer John Taylor bass groove!

i think that was actually carol kaye on bass.

kidding.

oh, come on... they both obviously have songs . . . it's mostly a matter of whether or not you like [i]the songs in question.[i]

Next you're going to tell me that when I call something "best" I really just mean "favorite."

nah, but saying that duran duran have no songs sounds like a much more specific criticism than that you just don't happen to like them. i mean, i don't care for most of madonna's early hits, but i'd never say she didn't have the songs to back up her celebrity. being pedantic, i suppose...

oh FFS

I can't separate Duran Duran from evil Thatcherite yuppiedom. Now they speak to me of Bullingdon Club members snorting coke, racially abusing prostitutes and telling each other they're going to become Prime Minister one day. Now those very same people are shafting the poor while helping the rich get richer with their austerity cuts. Might not be logical, or even fair, but such is life.
Hall & Oates all the way.

I can't separate Duran Duran from evil Thatcherite yuppiedom. Now they speak to me of Bullingdon Club members snorting coke, racially abusing prostitutes and telling each other they're going to become Prime Minister one day. Now those very same people are shafting the poor while helping the rich get richer with their austerity cuts.

;______________;

hall & oates probably synch with the equivalent people doing the same things here in the US. at this remove, though, it's hard to care.

I can't separate country music from evil Bush/Reagan conservatism.

Do Brits drop "Thatcherite" more than Yanks drop "Reaganite"?

I'd say it's about a push, depending on which circles you flow through.

Funny, but when I hear most country music, it's about how The Man is screwing the little guy. But I don't listen to the contemporary stuff, by and large.

DERAIL IMMINENT...

I can't separate Steely Dan from that one time I did coke on a yacht and knew the void.

This has been a pretty fruitful poll thread.

i can't separate steely dan from that one time when i was a kid with a high fever and had to go to the doctor and it was raining and rikki came on the tinny am car radio

I can't separate Steely Dan from that one time I did coke on a yacht and knew the void.

otm only the yacht was a motel iirc

This hasn't been mentioned yet in this thread, but in the taking sides of late-career comebacks "Everything Your Heart Desires" >>>> "Ordinary World."

"ordinary world" is one of the worst songs i've heard it my life. "everything your heart desires" is gold.

heard in my life, goddamit

There's that moment in "Everything Your Heart Desires" -- the middle eight, I guess -- when Hall starts improvising nonsense like "If you want the world...THINK OF MEEEEEE" while Oates and a multitracked Hall sing these beautiful rising harmonies. It's probably the only time H&O beat the nascent new jack sing/Al Be Sure! movement of late eighties R&B at their own game -- an almost reactionary use of two decades' worth of craft, i.e. "You young whippernsnappers, THIS is how you `do' proper R&B."

It's their last great moment, cuz after Ooh Yeah! and one minor hit off Change of Season ("So Close") they totally disappeared, and every attempt to return to a pop mainstream they helped create looked not just gauche but disconcertingly half-assed. I mean, seriously -- these guys deteriorated so rapidly that I almost understand pairing them with Duran Duran (who experienced many, many moments of leadfootedness during this period).

love j0hn bringing down the hammer itt, although it's very tempting to turn his defense of Eminem back on him here

fuck hall and oates tho, if i never heard them again it would be a blessing.

― BEAROTAURDED (jjjusten), Monday, July 5, 2010 11:00 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

Timely! http://www.duranduran.com/wordpress/?p=17122

A terrific new book will be coming out on July 15th, Talking to Girls About Duran Duran: One Young Man’s Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut . An unabashed Duran Duran fan, Rob Sheffield has decided to play tribute to one of his musical heroes by sharing stories of how they aided him while growing up growing up and learning all about girls. Publisher’s Weekly says “…(in this) tuneful coming-of-age memoir, the glamorous New Wave band Duran Duran presides spiritually over the all-consuming teenage male efforts to comprehend the opposite sex….The result is a funny, poignant browse from a wonderful pop-culture evocateur.”

Rob had this message for Duranduran.com:

” “Talking to girls about Duran Duran” is how I’ve spent my whole life! It always amazes me how huge this band is, and how much loyalty and ferocity they inspire in their listeners. They taught me a lot about music I never would have heard if not for them–stuff like Kraftwerk and Visage, Chic and Roxy Music. I remember watching MTV one night in 1983 when Simon and Nick were doing a guest VJ spot, for the world premiere of the “Save a Prayer” video. Simon and Nick were playing all these obscure videos by brilliant artists I’d never heard of, stuff that MTV normally would never play. I’ll never forget that night.

Like so many other American kids, I had my whole idea of music altered by Duran Duran. Simon’s whole sense of wit and wordplay was way ahead of what my other favorite bands were doing at the time, along with the whole idea of blending punk and funk, which would’ve been unheard of for any American band.

So I guess this book is my small attempt to pay homage to their massive presence in music and in pop culture over the years. We all owe them a lot. ”

This is totally a generational thing for me. H&O's blue-eyed soul gone new wavey-pop seemed so transparently like a willful, opportunistic rebranding to me in the early 80's whereas DD were 'cool' somehow or at least cool enough to girls that I somehow didn't loathe them and there were a few catchy songs I liked. H&O may fall into the backround for me at times and I don't hate them but I can never really like them. DD I rarely ever hear anymore but when I do, it reminds me of flirting in high school.

duran duran never seemed cool to me, but boy did they try hard. hall & oates didn't give a shit about being cool, they just wanted to kick out the jams.

They were not for you.

wonder to what extent ilm's preference for H&O is gender-driven? DD were coded/received as "music for girls" when i was a kid, and over the years i've known TONS of girls who love them to death, but relatively few guys who feel the same (though their appeal has definitely broadened in the last decade-plus). in spokane, at age 13 or so, DD also came across kinda gay, which didn't stop me from loving girls on film and hungry like the wolf, but did occasion sneering dismissals from my peers.

H&O, on the other hand, seem very dude-friendly. they're goofy rather than seriously seductive, their music is jam-packed with quirky little production details to geek out on, and they have the perverse allure of cultural refuse, junk to be picked up from the trash heap and loved anew. though they write seductive love songs, they do so in a way that seems consistent w guy culture, the entreaties deflated or deflected by a quality of knowing, jocular insincerity. like 10cc, kinda.

wonder to what extent ilm's preference for H&O is gender-driven?

I would guess it's almost completely gender driven?

never thought about it like that actually

wait, when did hall & oates end up in the trash heap?

Like I said above, H&O are angrier and (as you said) goofier than Duran Duran, who strut and are goofy (anyone who sez DD aren't goofy isn't remembering Rio and Seven and Ragged Tiger very well). But what the hell makes "jam-packed with quirky little production details" the kinds of qualities you associate with men? Have you ever heard Kate Bush?

i dont understand the gender-bias idea, but i do think UK/US taste-difference and ILX H&O enthusiasm figure in

well, in the 90s, they seemed to have been largely forgotten, or relegated to the camp nostalgia bin. knew few music fan types who made a big deal about seriously LOVING them. they certainly didn't get the pop-critical respect accorded to, like, the beach boys, the velvet underground, big star, etc. over the last 10 years, though, they've emerged as cult favorites.

admit that this may reflect my experience more than any deep truth.

ILX didn't create H&O enthusiasm -- lots of us found fellow fans on ILX.

why do I still get the feeling that a few of you are waiting for the H&O fans to say, "Awright, you guys win. These guys SUCKED. We were just fibbin'."

But what the hell makes "jam-packed with quirky little production details" the kinds of qualities you associate with men? Have you ever heard Kate Bush?

― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, July 6, 2010 12:09 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

i would expect that male and female musicians would be equally interested in elaborate production. that said, i've noticed a tendency among guys (as music fans) to get super crazy about technical minutia that seems at least slightly less prevalent among women. a bad, sexist truism, i'm sure, and perhaps reflective of my expectations/biases more than any actual reality, but this is nevertheless how it seems to me. sometimes...

not discounting H&O love, mind. they're great, and i can't say i strongly prefer duran duran.

i've noticed a tendency among guys (as music fans) to get super crazy about technical minutia that seems at least slightly less prevalent among women.

I've noticed this as well. And fwiw, was never fond of Duran Duran or Hall & Oates when they were popular, which was when i was a kid. I considered both to be cheesy. But Duran Duran is palatable cheesiness, whereas Hall & Oates is far less palatable.

Duran Duran were tigerbeat/teen beat pin ups when i was kid

yeah in elementary school DD was for girls. H&O was for everybody.

I still kinda marvel that a band as weird as DD successfully made it in the US as kiddie-pop.

Adam & the Ants kinda did too, though, and they were weirder than DD.

yeah, for whatever reason, adam & the ants seemed more acceptable to guys than DD - to nerdy guys, anyway. again, probably the overt humor.

Adam & the Ants were far more awesome than DD - but I would disagree that Hall & Oates were for everyone in elementary school - Hall & Oates were for parents.

I can assure you my parents did not enjoy Maneater

my parents had "Your Kiss is on My List" the 45 single, and also liked Maneater - to be fair, Hall & Oates was an improvement over Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits

still love adam & the ants, far more than either of the poll options here. and yeah, H&O sit a bit too comfortably alongside huey lewis or whatever, but they're still pretty great. comedy weirdness beats john cafferty & the beaver brown band any day of the week.

If whatever = Phil Collins solo output in the early-mid 80s, you have my unholy trinity, the hearing of which, makes me want to vomit pea soup and holler, "Your Mother Sucks Cocks in Hell"

In my high school (1983-1987), liking either DD or H&O -- both of whom I saw live in that period and bought and wore concert shirts from -- was enough to get you at best called a faggot, and at worst an ass-beating. My school was all about Motley Crue, Ratt, Zeppelin, Deep Purple, etc.

that was largely true of my school, too, but i hid out from the worst of that scene

Motley Crue, Ratt, DD, H&O... was there ever a more confusing time to be a straight hetero male than the 80s?

Is this gonna turn into another Gen X-ers youthful metal memories thread?

new board description

either that or depeche mode flashbacks.

all the cool mod/goth girls at my hs had the Violator t-shirt - had inferiority complex because of this. I was a big Cure fan, but not really a fan of DM at that point.

My school was too small, contenderizer -- only 120 in my graduating class. Luckily I had an older sister two years ahead of me who was considered "cool," so I was under some protection, at least from ass-beatings. But getting called "fag" was definitely on the menu. It was even worse when I wore the Prince concert tee.

xp My school didn't have mods OR goths. Nobody I knew -- literally nobody -- listened to Depeche Mode or the Cure. I once dated a girl from another school who introduced me to Husker Du and the Meat Puppets. And one person in my class once wore a J&MC shirt. I was also the only person I knew who owned an REM album.

they (H&O) certainly didn't get the pop-critical respect accorded to, like, the beach boys, the velvet underground, big star, etc. over the last 10 years, though, they've emerged as cult favorites.

you go too far sir.

How is that going too far? It seems accurate to me. It says H&O aren't in that league but get a lot of respect anyway, just on a different tier.

I do think it's funny how vociferous I've gotten on this thread because I don't think H&O's albums are all that good! They're the definition of a singles act to me, with a few exceptions. I just think they're a far, far better one than DD, who have their moments but not nearly as many and nowhere near as good as H&O's heights: "She's Gone," "I Can't Go For That," "One on One."

It says H&O aren't in that league but get a lot of respect anyway, just on a different tier.

i read the first part of that sentence as saying H&O are in, not just a level below, the tier occupied by the beach boys, velvet underground and big star.

I agree that they are both primarily singles acts, but I would vehemently disagree that DD were nowhere near as good as H&O. Otoh I acknowledge I will always be a completely irrational stan when it comes to Duran Duran. xp

Yeah, I read it as an acknowledgment that those three are in a place, plaudit-wise, that H&O isn't in and won't be, but that their support is strong. (xpost)

i've got almost every H&O album, but i almost always veer back toward the singles.

they're just a singles kind of act.

What a fun thread.

Not said enough: Daryl Hall is a fucking great singer. Now that I'm old enough I can appreciate the guy's terrific pitch and breath control. And he's still got it!