The Bridge: Learn How to Face It, She’s Gone
Allmusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine helps us track the winding byways of Hall & Oates’s hitmaking career—and we bid farewell to our producer.
[This edition of my Hit Parade—“The Bridge” bonus series is available to Slate Plus subscribers only. A link to the episode show page is below. To sign up for Plus—and tell Slate that Hit Parade sent you!—visit slate.com/hitparadeplus.]
In this mini-episode of Hit Parade, host Chris Molanphy is joined by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Senior Editor at Xperi, whose database of music information is available at Allmusic.com. In his quarter-century with Allmusic, Tom has written thousands of record reviews and biographies. Chris and Tom expand on the latest full-length episode about Daryl Hall and John Oates, tracing their chart successes and failures through the ’70s, a decade when Tom says the duo tried a little of everything—from gentle folk, to psychedelia and glam rock, even proto–New Wave—before they could arrive at their Imperial ’80s sound. The cross-genre appeal they generated attracted teenage MTV fans and adult soul aficionados alike.
Next, Chris quizzes a Slate Plus listener with some music trivia, gives her a chance to turn the tables with a question of her own, and previews next month’s full-length episode. Slate Plus members can sign up for a chance to be our trivia contestant on a future episode here.
Plus, Hit Parade says goodbye to a longtime producer and friend of the show. Podcast production by Asha Saluja.
Content retrieved from: https://slate.com/podcasts/hit-parade/2022/01/hit-parade-the-genre-phases-of-hall-and-oates.