Search - Hall & Oates :: Big Bam Boom

An excellent re-release with great bonus tracks

dfle3 | Australia | 05/01/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"
I bought the original version of this album years ago. Had it on cassette, I think, and updated to cd. Many years ago I was in a record store listening to the 12" version of "Out of touch" and I absolutely LOVED it. Those were the days record stores had headphones and allowed you to listen to albums before buying them...you didn't even have to buy the album! Good thing You Tube has come along to provide the "try" part before the "buy" part. So, seeing as this re-release has a 12" version of "Out of touch", I thought I'd buy it.



Time has dulled my enthusiasm for "Out of touch". At one time I would have called it an all time classic. It's still a really good song in any case, whatever version you listen to.



A criticism that comes to mind for compilations by this act is that you'd never get "Dance on your knees" on it, which opens this album. Having heard it on the album first, I'd always considered it the prelude to "Out of touch"...the way that it bleeds into it on the album. Think I've seen some compilations now which actually have "Dance on your knees" and "Out of touch" in sequence. The former runs at less than one and a half minutes in any case, so it barely qualifies as a song in its own right.



"Dance on your knees" is a great track, I think. A synthesiser quietly opens the piece and gets louder and louder until a thumping great drum beat pounds your ears. The rest of the song is anarchic-a cool beat with driving bass guitar, smashing cymbals and one of the most jarring synthesiser/keyboard rhythms you've ever heard. Then the 'crazy' ladies start their jibber-jabbering in God knows what language. Then there is the splending bleeding into "Out of touch".



"Out of touch" is maybe a song I could appreciate more in time. Perhaps I just loved it so much that I played this song to death and got a bit sick of it. It was catchy enough for me to want to listen to it a lot in a short space of time in any case. Features synthesiser/keyboard, and Darryl Hall's signature soulful voice.



Apparently "Method of modern love" was their second hit from this album...in the US at least. It's not a bad song. Has a Caribbean flavour to it, perhaps and a cool guitar effect for the intro. It has a dreamy sound to it...vocals included.



However, my own favourite track from the album [after the first two I mentioned] is "Some things are better left unsaid". It features another cool intro, the sounds of strings being plucked and a spaced out vocal delivery by Hall. Also love the ending to the song....there is a really good guitar riff to end proceedings and a good chant which fades away. Excellent song which people don't usually cite as one of the best from this album.



These are the best songs from the album, in my view. Hall and Oates show how to do a great 12" track with that version of "Out of touch". A criticism I made of a terrific album by Australian dance/pop/rockers Rogue Traders [their debut album in fact] was that despite having a bonus cd of extended mixes etc, these mixes were totally uninspiring. Perhaps artists from the 80's knew how to do a 12" version of a song right. It's a very welcome addition and I really hope that other artists do the same...e.g. I loved the EP of Falco's "Rock me Amadeus" [in fact, it's better than the single version]. Haven't seen that version on Falco compilations though.



The other 12" versions of songs from this album didn't do it as much for me, but if you like those songs, you'll enjoy having the length of the song doubled and having extra effects and bits thrown into the mix.



Hall's partner, John Oates does take the lead vocal duties in some songs, like "Cold dark and yesterday" and "Possession obsession".



There are some liner notes from this album which are reasonably long, and though I haven't read them yet, they seem to give good insights into how songs from the album came about [e.g. the notes for "Cold dark and yesterday" are interesting].



Overall, a good album with some excellent additions. If you like synth pop/rock, maybe check out some albums that I've recently reviewed here:



The Flowers-Icehouse

Gary Numan-Tubeway Army: The premium collection



Accidentally discovered a heavy metal band which uses synthesiser to great effect too: Coldseed's Completion makes the tragedy. Reviewed that here some months back."

Hall & Oates at their peak

T. Rutledge | Michigan | 08/23/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The time-frame in which this came out (late 1984) really was Hall & Oates at their peak. Perhaps not musically, but certainly this came out at the very high point of their career. They were on magazine covers, had their own HBO concert special ("The Liberty Concert" in 1985 - if you are a fan, check out the clips on Youtube). Some people have said that this album finds H&O "slipping" a bit, but I think it finds them in top form, and stands up next to just about anything they had done between 1980 and 1983.



This album is the natural progression of where their sound had been going since 1980's "Voices" and through 1982's "H2O" and through to 1983's "Say It Isn't So" and "Adult Education" -- namely a big beat, pop-dance-oriented sound. To add to the "big beat" sound Arthur Baker was brought in to remix the whole thing. (For those who don't know, Arthur Baker was one of the top remixers/dance-music producers of the 1980's, working with, among others, New Order).



The singles from this ("Out of Touch", "Method of Modern Love", Possession Obsession") are pretty representative of the sound of the album as a whole. Perhaps the one downfall of this album is that, bringing in someone to remix all of the tracks did result in a bit of a sameness of the overall sound and feel of the tracks. Also, as another reviewer stated, this thing is state-of-the-art 1984. That means it definitely sounds of its time. But, in my opinion, I have always really liked every song on this one. It's hardly high art, but it is solid mid-80's pop music.



If you are a casual fan looking to go a bit deeper with H&O than a hits compilation, then this one isn't for you (get "Abandoned Luncheonette" and "Voices" instead). But, if you are a more than just casual fan wondering if you should add this to your collection, I think you will be very happy with this one. In my opinion, I don't think there is a bad song on this album. A lot of 1980's "cheese" but, then again, that was really what the 1980's were about.



I can tell you the 2004 remaster is obviously far better than the original pressing LP and cassette versions of this thing that I had in the 1980's. But, I am not sure the 2004 remaster is that much ahead of the 1996 version (which I also owned). I would recommend the 2004 remaster because it does have the original lyrics/liner notes, and some bonus tracks, including the remix of "Out of Touch" that was included on the original 1984 cassette (the 1996 version has neither).



As for the songs, if you like "Out of Touch" and "Method of Modern Love" then you will like this album."