First thing’s first: I’m sure glad Hall & Oates have experienced a resurrection in popularity over the last couple of years. I bet they’re glad too.
Let’s hope they secured publication rights to all of their tunes.
Not surprisingly, indie snobs, hipsters and all sorts of other douche bags have started to buy used Hall & Oates records by the dozens. Why? Because Hall & Oates got so fuckin far away from being
hip that hipsters have now reclaimed the music just to make a statement about being tuned-in to something that anyone with a pair of fuckin ears has known from the get-go: Daryl Hall and John Oates write incredible songs. Ya don’t need a music snob to tell ya that. You either get it or you don’t.
So even less surprising is the arrival of the new album from Los Angeles’ very own The Bird and the Bee:
Interpreting the Masters Volume 1: A Tribute to Daryl Hall and John Oates. There isn’t much to say about it. Cover albums and tribute albums tend to be innocuous, if not totally unnecessary. This tribute is no different. With nine songs in all, vocalist Inara George and partner Greg Kurstin coast from hit to hit (“Heard It On The Radio”, “I Can’t Go For That”, “Rich Girl”, etc.) all the while doing very little to transform or update the material. So that’s the rub, I guess. This “interpretation” of Hall & Oates is a lousy one because these aren’t interpretations at all. These are pretty faithful reproductions of some of the best songs of the 80s. It’s almost as though you’re listening to alternate versions of the originals with a different vocalist. Sadly George isn’t interesting enough as a vocalist to justify the carbon copy musical arrangements. A large part of the appeal of Hall and Oates was/is the potency and passion behind the vocal tracks.
Interpreting the Masters is harmless, yea, but as is generally the case with projects like this all it really does is make the urge to hear the originals even stronger. – Kenny S. McGuane
Interpreting the Masters Volume 1: A Tribute to Daryl Hall and John Oates is out March 23rd via
Blue Note Records.
www.thebirdandthebee.com
