VICTIMS OF SEXISTANCE
Caveat: much of the following has been said before. But hey, boys, you keep delivering the same old goods and we hacks will be more dutiful than Pavlov's dogs. To wit: H20 is very much like the women Hall and Oates have been writing about all along, especially women that are not dogs.
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VICTIMS OF SEXISTANCE
HALL & OATES H20 (RCA)
by Laura Fisainger
Caveat: much of the following has been said before. But hey, boys, you keep delivering the same old goods and we hacks will be more dutiful than Pavlov's dogs.
To wit: H20 is very much like the women Hall and Oates have been writing about all along, especially women that are not dogs. The inference is that they are sleek, temperately trendy, appropriately smart and quirky, and grotesquely self-centered—involved enough to have had herpes, but detached enough to have cured themselves. Single-handedly.
So how does any red-blooded person (or dog) react to such deadly splendor? Bow wow! Get down, be white, get funky, get yours, get off, go home, feel like woof. In an era of unprecedented pop gorgeousness that technology has now wrought, nobody white
makes sensate sartori like Daryl Hall and John Oates. They have evolv,ed into producers of spectacular [restraint and imagination, and they write melodies that have you rolling over before you even know you've received the command. And then there's Daryl Hall's singing voice, right up there with hot fudge and hot oil rubs as a quiver in the coccyx. Why he keeps using it to feed his image as a suave son of a bitch is a mystery to me. But I still wag my tail.
H20 distinguishes itself in one way for sure—the duo's (or is it Hall's?) always-lurking misogyny comes out of the doghouse here and sits in the living room slathering while the family has guests. 'Maneater' revels in being danceable, tres moderne, crafted more carefully than a microchip, and it's fuckin' caveman from start to stop. To one extent or another, so are 'Crime Pays' (reptilian synthesizer), 'Guessing Games' (pretty, pretty), 'Go Solo' (emotional hook) and 'Delayed Reaction' (they can do Nick Lowe better than Dave Edmunds!). 'Open All Night' is the worst, however—here's a tune about how some woman is more accessible than a 7-11. Bark.
What cracks me up about this smart boys's guide to covert sexism is its pretense to victim status. How many women, liberated or otherwise, are going to play seriously stupid head games with men who are talented, rich, sexy and famous. I rest my case.
But just like another liberated rock boy recently said, I keep going back because it hurts so good. And because when the heart and humor does come through, it's like steak after three weeks of soup bones. As human beings, they are writing below their ability; these moments prove it. And as a dogged devotee for the entire 11-year span of their career, that severely ticks me off.
How's this for a footnote: Hall's longtime ^companion, Sara Allen, and her sister (?) Janna Allen help Daryl to write librettos. Well, who ever said sisterhood wasn't dog eat dog?
It should also be pointed out that when Oates gets a chance to write solo on H20, he changes the subliminal tone entirely. 'Italian Girls' is funny, loving unpretentious: 'At Tension,' after two or three go-rounds, becomes a natty, low-key confession of paralytic vulnerability.
Anyway. This LP is goigeous and hostile and I'll play it a lot, in spite and despite. A little hair of the dog that bit you...Aoooowhhhhoooo!
