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.

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!