Hall and Oates
War Babies

There are quite a few who believe that much of the music from the late Seventies should be discarded; a stance often so little articulated or dissected that it makes me think these critics identify those years (as is somewhat inevitable) more with the explosive phenomena of dance music and punk than with the emerging musical promises of new wave, fusion, and new soul. But while the promises of the first two genres, due to their historical relevance, have had proverbial rivers of ink spilled over them, the third is often confused by a definition that sounds vaguely anonymous.

The connoisseur, or enthusiast, if you will, knows well that much of this soul era is of unabashedly white origin, so much so that at the time the genre was classified as “blue eyed soul”: it fully includes artists of the caliber of Robert Palmer (exemplary his “Double Fun,” 1978), Gino Vannelli (always on the edge between fusion and sophisticated pop, as suggested by the famous “I Just Wanna Stop,” from the 1978 masterpiece “Brother To Brother”) or even certain lost gems by lesser-known names like Jimmy Webb and Michael Franks.

And let’s not forget the award-winning duo Hall and Oates, who are the most representative and successful product of this soul revolution. Also, remarkably enduring: we are still in the early Seventies when the duo released their raw debut, “Whole Oats” (1972), shortly followed by the first of a decent series of ‘masterpieces’ of the Philly sound, the treasure-laden “Abandoned Luncheonette” (1973). The real success (“Sara Smile,” from the eponymous 1976 album) and full artistic maturity (“Along The Red Ledge,” unsurprisingly 1978) would come a little later and last a long time, but critics and the public alike even at that time did not refrain from acclaiming the two, rightly so, as one of the revelations of the decade and as true pioneers of a new style.

At that time and given such premises, one might have thought anything except that the two would embroil themselves in a surprising, and by many considered unlikely, artistic partnership with their neighbor Todd Rundgren, a new hero of the homemade prog-glam-rock-pop (difficult to find a less synthetic or chaotic label for the minstrel’s art) at the time suspended between his great masterpieces “Something/Anything?” and “A Wizard, A True Star.” To give birth in no time (without the dramatic psychological outcomes our hero would face in crafting the XTC masterpiece “Skylarking,” 1986) to what some consider the only question mark in the duo's discography, which many count (not without substantial reasons) as the missing link in Todd's work with his Utopia, and which many others – though, in my opinion, never quite enough – hail as a hidden masterpiece of absolute innovative value and compositional uniqueness, born of the successful union of creative instances “so far, yet so close”: “War Babies” (1974).

The producer's touch is predominant in this wacky collage of funk, soul, urban rock with a decadent 'sound,' but the compositional flair of the two (particularly Daryl) never truly takes a backseat. This is how unattainable gems like the brilliant Oates-penned opener “Can’t Stop The Music” arise, a shining example of smooth, syncopated Philly soul, partially electrified like in the superb “Is It A Star”, to which the overture is linked. We are already at the pinnacle of what could be the only imaginable encounter between the new soul song form and the best of Rundgren's prog eclecticism.
The producer loves to indulge on the guitar (mostly replacing John) offering some of his best solos: the ethereal and dreamy slide of the amazing “I’m Watching You” (which alone is worth the entire record, with its 'soulful' piano intro and breathtaking choral outro, where Daryl's falsetto occasionally touches the sublime) or the rhythmic lightness in the curious pop perfection of “You’re Much Too Soon”.

Crazy and piercing, the prog-style passages à la “Wizard” pleasantly unhinge broad-brushed ballads featuring Daryl's usual emotive vocal power up front (the dramatic “70's Scenario” and “Screaming Through December”, the latter literally 'marred' by Todd's rhythmic inserts), yet there is no shortage of 'catchier' moments, such as the groove of “Better Watch You Back”, the dirty, syncopated, and obsessive funk of “Bennie G. And The Rose Tattoo”, the joyful melodic stride of the majestic “War Baby Son Of Zorro”, and the unique rock closure of “Johnny Gore And The C Eaters”: a rather 'bar band' piece in truth, but not such as to be out of place in a colorful carousel of brilliantly irreverent and irritating ideas that Daryl and John will no longer need to propose and that Todd, masterpieces aside, will hardly be able to present again in this state of grace.