War Babies

Hall and Oates’s third album was in retrospect easily one of their most engagingly atypical, though it lacked any hit singles and ultimately led to their switch from Atlantic to RCA. While part of that mixed reaction could be ascribed to producer/fellow Philadelphian Todd Rundgren’s musical contributions – that’s Rundgren audibly going nuts on lead guitar throughout – the vibe was also nearly Steely Dan-like, with nostalgic references mixed with character studies and cynical themes on songs like “War Baby Son of Zorro” and “Beanie G and the Rose Tattoo.”

If second-LP breakthrough Abandoned Luncheonette first put Hall & Oates on the map as potential future stars, their third was a wildly eccentric excursion into identity-searching freeform territory, where prog, funk, and piano ballads gave a thousand-yard stare to their blue-eyed soul. Fellow Philly fanatic Todd Rundgren brought members of his group Utopia in to push Daryl and John’s nuanced chops into turf that attempted to reunite the increasingly AOR-splintered worlds of hard rock and smooth soul — especially the fame-gazes-back shuffle of “Is It A Star,” the malaise-cope of “70’s Scenario,” and the band-gig nightmare travelogue “Screaming Through December.” It’s an anomaly, but it also sounds like the Steely Dan / Stevie Wonder / David Bowie melange you never knew you wanted.