Ooh Yeah!

by Kelvin HayesFrom 1980-1984, the Billboard chart could have been dubbed the Hall & Oates chart for their seemingly never ending assault of number one singles (amazingly, they never had a number one album). However, after Big Bam Boom and their live pre-sabbatical At the Apollo, Hall again embarked on his solo album for six/seven years and the overblown Three Hearts and its happy ending machine were born. When they returned on Arista in 1988, they delivered a very good album in Ooh Yeah. But the legendary Hall & Oates were treated as comeback artists. Pulling the rug from under their feet, critics slammed the album as the worst for a decade. A case of old news. Ooh Yeah is shock horror as good as H2O or Private Eyes, but the stigma of bad apple gave it a bad name. Ironically, Oates enjoyed U.S. Top Ten success at the time thanks to a collaboration with Icehouse on "Electric Blue," and with Hall, the lead single "Everything Your Heart Desires" managed an admirable number three. The album itself is more or less standard but shows a creative touch towards the end with its trilogy: "Soul Love," "reaLove," and "Keep On Pushing Love."