Daryl Hall conducted his solo career largely concurrently with his work with
John Oates, stepping outside the duo whenever they reached a creative or business crossroads. The first of these happened in the back half of the 1970s, when the success of "Sara Smile" and "Rich Girl" paradoxically left
Hall & Oates in a corner where they battled with their label and producer during the recording of
Beauty on a Back Street. Frustrated,
Hall took a busman's holiday and recorded the angular, arty
Sacred Songs with
King Crimson guitarist
Robert Fripp.
Hall & Oates incorporated many of the artistic innovations of
Sacred Songs on such blockbusters as
Voices,
Private Eyes, and H2O, albums that made the duo the biggest hitmakers of the early 1980s. When that run concluded,
Hall released
Three Hearts in the Happy Ending Machine, a dense, psychedelic-infused album made with
David A. Stewart of
Eurythmics -- an album inspired by post-New Wave trends that did give
Hall a hit in "Dreamtime."
Both
Sacred Songs and
Three Hearts are sampled heavily on
Before After, a double-disc compilation covering the entirety of
Daryl Hall's solo career. Sequenced with a studious disregard for chronology,
Before After uses the modernist pop as bracing contrasts with the smooth rock & soul that constitutes the rest of
Hall's career, including highlights from his acclaimed, long-running internet show Live from Daryl's House. The cumulative effect can downplay the appealing weirdness of the first two records, but that amounts to a fair portrait of
Hall's solo work: he worked out his experiments early, then returned to R&B for 1993's
Soul Alone, a fine record that set the template for
Can't Stop Dreaming and
Laughing Down Crying. If there are few surprises in form, the overall strength of the material can come as a shock:
Hall remained a strong craftsman into the 21st century and, as versions of
Eurythmics' "Here Comes the Rain Again" and
Todd Rundgren's "Can We Still Be Friends" prove, an expert interpreter of material. At two-and-a-half hours,
Before After is a bit lengthy, but taken on a cut-by-cut basis, each song serves as a testament to one of
Hall's skills, whether it's as a songwriter, singer, or recordmaker. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine