Mike Bennett writesFriday iPod/MP3 Shuffle—Happy Birthday Daryl Hall Edition

He is the primary half of the most successful duo in rock music history. Well into his fifties, he’s still the suave, handsome, cool frontman with the soulful voice. Daryl Hall and John Oates got started as folk duo who incorporated soul music and became progressively more pop. They hit it big with Daryl’s “Sarah Smile” and followed up by re-releasing the early tune “She’s Gone”, and they soon became chart fixtures. They recharged in the ‘80s, adding new wavey influences and became more popular than ever. Eventually, the hits quit coming, but Hall and Oates have never gone away, still playing out and still recording, and garnering more respect than ever as people can now truly appreciate their catalog. In the meantime, Daryl hosts a swell TV show, Live from Daryl’s House, where every week he hosts a band or singer and they play and kibbitz. Let’s give Daryl Hall a birthday salute by grabbing your iPod or MP3 player, hitting shuffle and sharing the first 10 songs that come up.

1. Eat – Electric City (Sell Me A God): In the late ‘80s, Eat played a sometimes swampy variation on the post-punk sounds of bands like Comsat Angels and The Cure. Their debut album was by far their best. This song has a galloping drum part and works an edgy blues rock vibe. Kind of Nick Cave lite, sort of.
2. Lorraine Child – You (The Girls’ Scene): This is from a compilation of British ‘60s girl pop singers. This is nifty mid-tempo ballad, somewhat in the vein of The Ronettes, though not as amped up.
3. Eleventh Dream Day – Death of Albert C. Sampson (Prairie School Freakout): Awesome dual lead guitar work kicks off this chugging freight train of a song from one of Chicago’s all-time great bands. Rick Rizzo emotes, Janet Bean pushes things along on drums, and the song constantly threatens to explode, and when Rizzo’s guitar solo comes in, it kills.
4. New Musik – Kingdoms of Horses (Warp): The third and final album by this British synth-pop band is not quite as good as the first two, but it’s still laden with hooks. On this album, leader Tony Mansfield dialed down the use of acoustic guitars and focused more on fuller, layered percussion. This song even features a funk bass, which meshes better than one might expect with the airy melody.
5. Kid Creole & The Coconuts – It’s a Wonderful Life (Doppelganger): A salsa/funk based track composed by Kid Creole’s foil, Coati Mundi, whose contributions always provided an extra bit of fizz to an already fizzy group. This song just a laid back party, with steel drums, reggae and salsa rhythms, funk guitar, great horn lines and Mr. Mundi serving as a tour guide through the song.
6. The Psychedelic Furs – Entertain Me (Book of Days): One of the best songs on the Furs’ sixth album. After a couple forays into somewhat poppier territory, the band retrenched into more basic guitar rock. This song has a big guitar part and a simple hook in the chorus, and Richard Butler sounds great in that Richard Butler kind of way.
7. David Bowie – Velvet Goldmine (The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars): This bonus track on the Rykodisc reissue of the classic David Bowie album was originally supposed to be on the LP, but was pulled for “Suffragette City”, which was a pretty good call. The track later became a b-side to a reissue of “Space Oddity”. Although it was pulled for a better song, this track would have fit in well, and it has a nice chorus that sounds a bit Kinks-y, but with a Bowie twist, of course. Yes, the movie was named after this song.
8. Florence & The Machine – Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)(Lungs): Florence Welch’s voice is a wonder, and the first album definitely has its moments of Kate Bush gone arena rock grandeur, like on this track. The drums pound hard and there’s lots of ornamentation, building to a great chorus.
9. Chris Von Sneidern – On The Ground (California Redemption Value): CVS is a master of emotional pop songs that are rooted in the classicism of early Big Star, Badfinger and a wee bit of Marshall Crenshaw. This hearttugger has a bit of British blues rock vibe to it, but it’s not too heavy and his vocal is, as usual, terrific – he’s a very expressive singer.
10. James Brown – Good Good Lovin’ (50th Anniversary Collection): This is an album track that was on his I Feel Good album. This has a fun up-and-down rhythm, and features Brown at his least gritty, but it’s a bouncy tune, for sure.