Daryl Hall & John Oates – Out Of Touch
#quotefromthe80s
We're soul alone
And soul really matters to me
Take a look around
You're out of touch
I'm out of time
#OutOfTouch #DarylHallAndJohnOates #HallAndOates
Imagine one day in the 70s, in Philadelphia there is a music band contest. Imagine that in the middle of the contest, between rehearsals, two non-musical gangs arrive, two gangs like Hell’s Angels, Montreal Canadiens, things like these, and they start a rioting fight, and maybe some gunshots are also heard.
Imagine also that the members of the bands start to run away from all sides in a panic, and that two guys from two different bands find themselves hiding in a service elevator, not even a main elevator.
Imagine two of them starting to talk. It must have been a conversation like this, more or less.. you know, I was here for the contest… ah so do I… but in which band do you play?… I play the oboe with the Canemuertos… oh great, I play the Burmese horn for LillaTrillas…
Imagine those two guys who met in the elevator were Daryl Hohl and John Oates. One of the most famous and powerful partnerships of 70s and 80s pop was born on that day.
Many years and many hits after that afternoon, Daryl Hall (written in a more American way) and John Oates have become really two exceptional musicians, the former has a very particular voice and the second is an excellent guitarist. It’s early October 1984, the two have already released eleven albums together, and are about to present their new album “Big Bam Boom”. The world calls them “Hall&Oates”, probably from an old mailbox of a major where they received mail with this wording, but they continue to present themselves officially as “Daryl Hall and John Oates”.
Before presenting the album, however, they present their first single. It’s a special moment: technology allows you to leverage both analog recording, now at the peak of progress with masters up to 48 tracks, and digital recording, through the use of synthesizers and samplers.
Hall and Oates chose analog technology, but decided to use samples and synthesizers to create new sounds. The result is fantastic, and their sounds are absolutely modern.
The song deals with the theme of isolation, being inaccessible and seeing others as inaccessible. A deep topic, which the two handle with the usual sense of humour. Yes, because although they are absolute stars in the United States and only travel on their private jet, Hall and Oates have always put a touch of genius and hunour in their lyrics and videos.
Since the money was not lacking, for the video they even built a gigantic drum set, and one of the drums overwhelms them in the video flattening them to cardboard, but this does not prevent them from singing.
The final scene in the video is unforgettable: Hall and Oates have been locked inside the gigantic drum, the symbol of their isolation, of their being “Out of touch”. And here we have to remember the words that John Oates said in an interview: “We looked at each other during filming and said, we’re finally at the top of all the pop charts in the world, and we’re locked in a drum at three AM in a Queens warehouse!”
Great!! Hall and Oates were a little underrated in Europe also because they focused their promotion and their tours almost exclusively in America, but their level was really out of touch!
Hall&Oates on Wikipedia
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