Consumer Guide Album

Daryl Hall & John Oates: Big Bam Boom [RCA Victor, 1984]
What makes these guys so depressing is their definitive proof that instinctive musicality insures no other human virtue. Rival popsters, Bruce and Cyndi included, don't do nearly as much for Arthur Baker's hip-hop dub, which in this context is sly and graceful and goofy and catchy and thrilling, and they even have the good taste to like, you know, soul. Yet if in the end you think the music doesn't connect, you get a gold star--the affluent anomie I wish were only a pop-sociology cliché pervades not just the lyrics but the mix itself. And you want to know something even more depressing? Millions of record buyers either don't notice or like it like that. B