★★★★★
Has Daryl Hall ever been cooler than he is now? The last decade has seen his work as half of Hall & Oates go from the 1980s nostalgia bin to the rock pantheon. He has become something of a pop culture icon, appearing on hip television shows from Will & Grace to Flight of the Conchords. The electro-pop duo the Bird and the Bee released a non-ironic album of Hall & Oates covers...
- www.popmatters.com
2011-12-01
★★★★★
There is little more that Daryl Hall can do to prove himself as a performer. Anyone skeptical of his soulful ability to sing across genres need only tune into his monthly web broadcast, now on syndicated television, Live From Daryl's House. Month to month, he shares the microphone with fellow legends, such as Smokey Robinson, and rising stars, such as Nikki Jean. It is a true example and a fine illustration of art-meets-Internet innovation...
- www.popmatters.com
2011-11-21
★★★★★
"I guess you can tell by listening to this collection that I've been through a lot." So begins the liner notes on Daryl Hall's fifth solo album and his first in the new millennium, Laughing Down Crying. Now 65 years old (really...
- www.soultracks.com
2011-10-24
★★★★★
Daryl Hall and John Oates reigned supreme as kings of blue-eyed soul for most of the '80s by streamlining their R&B; leanings for mass consumption. But no formula works forever, and Hall has chosen to abandon the pop marketplace and aim specifically at the black listener with an album of well-crafted buppie readymades, Soul Alone. It's official: He's now an Urban Contemporary artist, which is kind of a drag.
- ew.com
2010-08-27
★★★★★
Produced by King Crimson's Robert Fripp and conceived as part of an "MOR Trilogy" which also included his own Exposure and Peter Gabriel's second eponymous solo album, this prog-rock-soul oddity was recorded in 1977, only to be shelved by a too-timid RCA until 1980 (and deleted soon after)...
- www.uncut.co.uk
2010-06-19
★★★★★
Daryl Hall is capable of mutant soul genius. Look no further than 1980's Sacred Songs callaboration with Robert Fripp (see Take 74, p135) and Hall & Oates' Todd Rundgren-produced 1974 weirdscape War Babies for proof. But that penchant for oddness is disappointingly absent from the overproduced and uninspired white soul of Can't Stop Dreaming. The voice is flawless, but there's little here to do it justice...
- www.uncut.co.uk
2010-06-19
★★★★★
This is the eagerly awaited collaboration between avant-garde rocker Robert Fripp and Daryl Hall (the willowy half of Hall and Oates) that was withheld for two years, apparently because RCA feared that Sacred Songs' flirtation with the tape-loop void so dear to Fripp's cerebellum would dismay all those faithful Hall and Oates fans who dote on the duo's fulsome soul-rock...
- www.rollingstone.com
2009-06-08
★★★★★
Bloated by endless codas, superfluous instrumentation, hall upon hall of vocal mirrors, and the artist's unshakable confidence that his talent makes him significant, these ten songs average almost five minutes apiece. Cut down to the trifles they are by a lightweight collaborator, they might qualify as likable pap. We'll never know.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-03-22
★★★★★
Can't Stop Dreaming has a rather tangled release history. It was originally issued in Japan in 1999 on the BMG International label, and in 2003 it appeared in America but missing two tracks. Anyway, as those who witnessed the resurgence of Hall & Oates will attest, Hall has never sounded better. His vocal range is all that it once was and more...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27
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