Customer Reviews

Bigger Than Both of Us (Original Recording Remastered)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

On Daryl & John's early RCA releases, they made it a point to put the hits on side one and the experimental songs on side two. You'll hear plenty of both with songs like "Do What You Want, Be What You Are" which is a classic, and their first number one song "Rich Girl". Other songs that deserved hit status are "Kerry" and "London, Luck & Love". Best from the 'experimental' side include "You'll Never Learn" and "Room To Breathe".

Daryl wasn't too happy with the production (which they took care of when they started producing themselves) and you can see what he means if you play "Room To Breathe" from this and from "Live Time".

It's a fine rock album overall and has one of the best album covers you'll ever see.

(4.5 Stars)

This is criminally out of print..criminal because there's a lot more to be found on here than the pop hit "Rich Girl".

Oates pens two of H&O's prettiest hooks on the ELO-ish "Back Together Again", as well as "Crazy Eyes". He also turns in another fantastic song with the mysterious "You'll Never Learn". Oates was definetely on his A-Game here.

And Daryl's tunes are as good as you'd expect from him. The aforementioned "Rich Girl" is a great pop/soul number with an instantly catchy chorus. He's hauntingly beautiful on the minor-key ballad "Do What You Want, Be What You Are" (which may have been a minor hit, I'm not sure), and he even rocks it out on the stomping, guitar-driven "Room To Breathe" (which has some great bluesey riffs).

There's more, though. "Kerry" is a fantastic mid-tempo pop/rocker; brooding, but really catchy at the same time. He also works some mandolin into the uptempo "London Luck and Love", which has some cool droning guitar effects throughout..

And "Falling" alone justifies paying $20 for an out of print CD. It starts off quiet (electric piano + voice), and dynamically reaches a memorable guitar solo at the end. They diddle around with a synthesizer for the lengthy outro (which probably sounded super futuristic and spacey at the time, though a bit dated now). But the actual song is phenomenal, with chord changes and lush production that would make their buddy Todd Rundgren smile with glee..

(As a somewhat useless factoid, there's a title track to this album..only it's one of those "Houses of the Holy" situations where the band finished the album before the song, so you have to buy their next album, "Beauty on a Back Street" to find it)

Not sure why this hasn't been remastered. It's one of my favorite Hall & Oates albums, and there's really no filler to be found.

A solid album from Hall & Oates that produced the #1 hit "Rich Girl," Bigger Than Both Of Us features the soul-infused rock of the 1970's and the duo's signature harmonies, as exemplified on the first track -- "Back Together Again." The lyrics of the song recall the 60's soul scene; it was fun and nostalgic when it was recorded and is even more so now that the music evokes our memories of the 70's as well. "Rich Girl," "Do What You Want, Be What You Are," and "Falling" are the highlights of this 1976 release, but the album plays well from beginning to end and even the lesser tracks are enjoyable. If you're a fan of Hall's vocals, you'll want the album just for "Do What You Want"; the slow, easy, laid-back sensuality of the music is masterfully blended with his technically demanding yet silky-smooth delivery that alternately matches and contrasts with the mood of the song. If you like Hall & Oates or are a fan of 70's music, you'll find that Bigger Than Both Of Us has much to offer.

When Daryl Hall and John Oates did Bigger Than Both of Us, they once more fashoned a true Masterpice, and although Abandoned Lunchonette was a failure, that album was a very poorly overlooked Masterpiece, with this one being accepted and successful.

Rich Girl is a song that not only was the Duo's first mass Hit, but it was also a song that showed how Daryl was such a great songwriter, to create something at the spir of a moment. He wrote the song as a protest to the attitude of a former Boyfriend of Daryl's dear Girlfriend and co songwriter with John Oates, who was Miss Sara Allen; of which this guy was a spoiled brat who demanded that everything be his way, so Daryl did a song about his attitude, but instaid of saying " Rich Guy, Now Your Going to Far" and then " Its a Bitch" and Bitch Guy, he said Girl in all those phraises.

Back Together Again was both Daryl and John's look at the reunion of Frankie Vale and the 4 Seasons, of whom they admired alongside the Idols of MOTOWN. Do What You Want, Be What You Are is an amazing ballad of deep feeling, as well as it being a song of acception for various feelings at the time of sorts. The song was defenitly accepted by many Gays in America and Britain as well as Continental Europe, for so many points in the song reflect on one accepting one's self, as well as others accepting that person's image.

Crazy Eyes is a Love song that begins with a beautiful Guitar intro in acoustic form, while You'll Never Learn is another love ballad but different as it has no acustic Guitar in the full force that Crazy Eyes has; in which John Oates sang those two songs.

London-Luck and Love is a song that is dedicated to London as a city, where I believe that it was influenced by some Tour that they must have had previously, which included a few British Gigs.

All that is this album I enjoy, and the album cover is amazing as it has the two guys in a futuristic Jetsons like Apartment. John is using a Home Computer as Daryl is writing down his lyrics, while John also has his Fender Strat, in which one must remember that this album was made in 1976, and Private Home Computers were only being developed at the time, and there was no such thing as Apple or Dell and Microsoft at the time. It is also to mention that the Apartments outside of the window are Amps and the balconies and gardens are Amp dials, when the Amp sound Gadges are the windows.

I recomend this one 100 per cent

This, their 2nd RCA album and the follow up to the "Silver" album, has many things going for it. First of all, the breakthrough mainstream hit "Rich Girl" which you can still find among many best of the 70's compilation albums that are out there and secondly, the main personnel that were involved with their previous effort were still involved here. The great Chris Bond guitar work and the good jazz-drumming that made the "Silver" album such a classic is still present here albeit not as well done here but still noteworthy.

The not so good points though is that here is where we start discovering the H&O bad habit of intermingling great tracks with the odd, weak clanger tracks. Where there were no weak tracks on the "Silver" album where every track is a soul classic, "Room to Breathe" should really have been left out as it really stinks up the place. Otherwise, the other tracks are real gems especially the great "Do What You Want, Be What You Are", "Back Together Again", "Kerry" and "You'll Never Learn".

This version has been brilliantly remastered and the mini-lp sleeve is a work of art which also includes all the lyrics in English and Japanese. Highly recommended for all H&O lovers out there and this is THE version of the album to get.

This album spawned three Top 40 hits. BACK TOGETHER AGAIN sounds great. DO WHAT YOU WANT,BE WHAT YOU ARE is another great-sounding "blue-eyed soul" track. RICH GIRL was the only #1 hit. The other songs are great.

**** and a half stars, rich girl (which began the road to fame for H&O), the romantic ballad "Do what you wanna do, be what you are", "back together again" was a minor hit, and the sleeer hit the great "room to Breath", Awesome rocker!, "kerry" and "falling" are nice and innocent songs, but don't flow with the rest of the album.a Nice starting place for hall and oates fans!

This 1976 release was the first platinum disc for the hitmaking duo. The huge #1 hit RICH GIRL certainly helped propel the album to its massive sales achievement but there are some other gems here including BACK TOGETHER AGAIN, DO WHAT YOU WANT BE WHO YOU ARE and FALLING. H&O's "blue-eyed soul" is evidenced in most of the 9 tracks although ROOM TO BREATHE leans more to Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Hall and Oates became the successful duo they were by crafting excellent hooks reinforced by their soulful vocals and a keen awareness of what their fans appreciated. This album launched their road to that success.

Considering the big success of their RCA debut album Daryl Hall & John Oates it wasn't the least bit surprising that they'd release a follow up album that would be more than worthy of it's predecessor. It was just one of those kinds of albums. While the duo could've easily coasted on a particular sound and tred water they decided to keep growing and working with and around their sound. On this album the Philly soul influence is still the main focus of the arrangements and writing. On the other hand the album holds together more in terms of the sound and the music has a more fluid sound as a result,even across the songs that diviated from the albums general sound. All the same Daryl Hall apparently wasn't entirely happy with certain elements of the production sound of Christopher Bond on this album and this was one of the albums that set them to thinking of their decision to produce themselves in the 80's,which turned out to be the best choice they ever made. Even still this album became their first platinum success and really cemented them on the pop music map. One of the reasons for that is the very Philly sounding uptempo classic "Rich Girl",actually an outtake from the previous album that really became the song this album would be known for. At this point however Hall & Oates' musical ambitions were focused very differently at this time. Whereas after their Voices singles were the main priority for them they were in the mid to late 70's still a much more AOR oriented duo,much the same as fellow Philly music maestro Todd Rundgren who once produced them so it wasn't uncommon to still have them stretching out different musical ideas across several songs rather than packing them into one. The final half of the album,from "Kerry","London Luck & Love","Room To Breathe","You'll Never Learn" and "Falling",which has an almost jazz fusion style synthesizer solo at the conclusion there was the conceptualization of a rock mini suite. I would'nt call it proggy by any means since the soul and songwriting are a big priority but it does have a certain (and very Rundgrenoid) flow to it all regardless. "Back Together Again" and "Crazy Eyes" are two very well crafted funky soul tunes from John Oates,in terms of vocals and writing far less eccentric and quirky than his contributions to the previous album and two of this albums anchoring songs in a lot of ways. Ditto for the more collaborative and similarly framed "Do What You Want,Be What You Are". This would not be the last of Hall & Oates' album to contain some more experimental ventures but still two big hit albums like this and the previous release assured at least two or three more albums whose success was mainly built on momentum and that to a degree is sort of what happened for the remainder of the decade with them. Even still as they saying goes this was the start of something big for this talented Philly duo.

This was the first Hall and Oates Album I ever owned and it has remained one of my favorite all time listening pleasures. From the sharp cool album cover to the clean and crisp production by Christopher Bond, "Bigger than Both of Us" established the duo as a pop/soul/rock hybrid of the highest quality. The album still sounds fresh even to this day. From the innovative string and guitar arrangement of "Back together Again" through the smoldering soul of "Do what you wanna Be what you are" and climaxing in the cascading electronica of "Falling", Daryl and John set the bar so high on this record that they had a hard time eclipsing this record even though subsequent albums all had their high points. From beginning to end this is a masterpiece. That is why, in lieu of finding the album intact I had to order a compilation that had this entire album mixed up in it (Rich Girl a UK import). Thankfully the good folks at Friday music have done the musical universe a great favor by remastering and rereleasing this and other H & O albums to be enjoyed by maybe a new generation of listeners who recognize that cool and quality can be found in the same package!