h Magazine's hmonthly.com » Daryl Hall http://www.hmonthly.com Entertainment News | Film and Music Reviews | Celebrity Pictures Wed, 23 Mar 2011 23:32:09 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Daryl Hall, Sacred Songs – Cult Pick http://www.hmonthly.com/2009/02/08/daryl-hall-sacred-songs-cult-pick/ http://www.hmonthly.com/2009/02/08/daryl-hall-sacred-songs-cult-pick/#comments Sun, 08 Feb 2009 04:54:34 +0000 Administrator http://hmonthly.com/blog/?p=2046 Daryl Hall
Sacred Songs
1980
After the creatively stifling and uptight 1977 recording process of Hall and Oates’ Beauty on a Black Street, soul-pop crooner Daryl Hall needed to cut loose a bit and dig back into the loose roots that gave birth to such hits as “Rich Girl” and “Sara Smile”. At the time, Oates was off to tend to some non-musical personal endeavors, and Hall was in need of a collaborator to help him find his soul again. So, in perhaps one of the most befuddling pairings of all time, Hall teamed up with King Crimson’s prog-rock progenitor, Robert Fripp, for his debut solo album, Sacred Songs. Aside from tapping Fripp to produce the songs and play guitar, Hall was also getting into occultist philosophy at the time he was writing the album, adding another element to the already outlandish material (check out Hall singing about “earth magick” on “Without Tears”).
The results of this unlikely pairing are strangely brilliant. Hall’s soaring vocal delivery is complimented by Fripp’s maniacal guitar work and layered production, and Fripp’s experimental touches offer some intriguing soundscapes that leave you to ponder what Hall and Oates would have sounded like if Fripp was in the group. (Hall and Oates and Fripp doesn’t really have a ring to it, though). “Something in 4/4 Time” is a perfect example of the album’s unique avant-pop—a walking piano line and Hall’s vocal hooks play out nicely until the middle of the song, when a psychedelic Fripp jam erupts and plays with your brain for half a minute before releasing it back into the chorus. There’s also the bizarre “Babs and Babs” which features a “Frippertronics” middle section that probably rendered the song commercially useless. Oh, and we can’t forget the glam-punk songs “NYCNY” or “You Burn Me Up I’m a Cigarette” – two driving balls of rock n’ roll that could have endeared Hall to the 70’s punk scene if the album had been released in 1977 (when it was recorded), instead of 1980 (RCA apparently didn’t know what to do with it and shelved it for three years).

by Bill Dvorak

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