Cheap Sacred Songs (Music) (Daryl Hall) Price

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Customer Reviews of Sacred Songs

Masterpiece / * Classic *
Daryls 1st Solo Album, rec. in '77 and shelved for 3 years! Produced by Robert Fripp (King Crimson), and is part of a triology by Fripp:exposure-Robert Fripp and Peter Gabriele (nails cover).This album will throw you off, if your keen to hall and oates.There is No Commercial Music here!, works for the best though with fripps odd but good selection of rythem.Title track will Really puzzle you, might even anger you, because of how different it is from Anything daryl ever did! Not one weak track...wait let me take that back, track 11 and 12 were ADDED to this from Exposure, and even though daryl sings on these tracks it sounds like fripps music and not Daryl's, if you know what i mean.Look for the '92 "Japan Only" release of sacred songs, it has the original 10 tracks and is recorded Better.It's hard to say this is Daryl Hall's best Album, even if I did rate it Highest,out of all his albums... this sound would never be recorded again by hall and its a shame, but it was also a side project only at the time.If You Never heard this before and you plan to buy it - It will take some getting use to to understand and enjoy this Great Gem!

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Hall's most heartfelt effort and unrecognized masterwork
Recorded in 1977, 'Sacred Songs' came relatively early in the career of Hall and Oates and, as produced by Robert Fripp, presented an entirely different Daryl Hall that, had the album been properly handled, could have launched him into a very different area other than the recycled 'soul music' of his work with the duo. 'Sacred Songs' presented a Hall with Balls, barking out the lyrics to edgy songs, way removed from any kind of mock soul, tetering delicately on the fringes of punk, and pushed right over the edge in the Fripp controlled songs like 'You Burn Me Up,' 'Babs and Babs,' and 'NYCNY,' especially - All balanced by the beefy rock ballads scattered throughout, like 'Why Was it So Easy,' 'Survive,' and 'Without Tears'.

Intended as part of a Fripp produced trilogy (along with Fripp's 'Exposure' and Peter Gabriel II), 'Sacred Songs' was held up for release until 1980 by image conscious record monsters, severely lessening its impact, and consequential publicity, both as part of the Fripp triology, and as a solo break from the by then outrageously successful Hall and Oates.

If you are a really big fan of Hall and Oates, this is probably not for you. If you like Hall's voice and style, but not the H & O material, try this out for a HUGE surprise of what could have been.

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Overlooked, Underheard Near Masterpiece
Being a certified Fripp-O-File I had long been aware of the legendary, out of print "Third of the Exposure Trilogy" album King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp made with pop/rock dorkmeister Daryl Hall, but had never heard it. Lo and behold I stumbled upon a used vinyl pressing a few years back for $.99 cents, and was quite surprised with how long it dominated my sound system. I am not a fan of Mr. Hall's typical work, but this album redeems him as an artist. There quite literally isn't a "bad" song on it, even if the second side kind of gets sappy and lovie dovie ... for sappy lovie dovie songs they are pretty damn good.

But I don't think this album will do much for Hall's typical fan base, and instead recommend it as a "must-have" for anyone who has followed Robert Fripp's career. In 1977 - 79 he produced/recorded three albums meant to represent a trilogy, one essentially a solo album with various friends as quest musicians/vocalists [Hall among them], another a more or less straight forward production of Peter Gabriel's second solo album, and then this animal. While Fripp's Exposure is probably the most solid offering of the three, Sacred Songs kinds of more suggests to me what a 1978 era King Crimson might have sounded like with Hall on vocals and Fripp engaged in his little sound experiments. It certainly lacks the frenetic gloom of the last "early period" Crimson album, Red, but feels like more of an ensemble piece than either Exposure or Gabriel II, with Fripp's guitar experiments as the fulcrum around which Hall weaves his tapestry of pop sentimentalities.

And the combination is strangely effective ... the album gets off to a slow start with "Sacred Songs", which plays out as sort of a pop-accessible introduction to the tangents they take off on after it is out of the way. "Something in 4/4 Time" might be perhaps Fripp's best work as a session musician this side of David Bowie's Scary Monsters ... the song swells to a wall of polyrhythmic crescendos that could only have been made by one person. "Babs and Babs" is a fascinating compromise between Hall's straightforward songwriting style and Fripp's steadfast determination to use the album as a demonstration of his then new Frippertronics tape loop devices ... at points when a lesser artist would have devolved into a hollow, dime a dozen solo, Fripp builds loop upon loop of harmonizing sounds and then pulls the rug from underneath the listener, cutting back to Hall's singing and then ending the piece by fading the rock band into an "Urban Landscape" Frippertronics segment .... And then BAM! we kick into a high tempo Fripp/metal variation on one of his Exposure tracks, and if you listen carefully you can hear a chair get shoved out of the way as Hall stands up to belt out one of the most observed songs about New York City I have ever heard.

The second side kind of pales in comparison, with sing song sweeties and harmonized Fripperies that are more reminiscent of Hall's work with the dreaded John Oates. But one track stands out in particular -- "Don't Leave me Alone With Her" has not only a fascinating lyrical standpoint but features a classic King Crimson effect in how the song fades out towards the end and then roars back to life for a final burst of energy. Daryl Hall as Album Oriented Rock? You bet -- this could have been as big of a hit as Boston if the album hadn't been shelved until 1980 and then underpromoted. Too bad.

The sound quality of the CD is first rate and true to the original vinyl mix but with greater clarity, especially in the upper ranges. There is very little tape hiss, and the song mixes are the same as on the record [I have always been annoyed by how Fripp has "remixed" his LP's for CD 'definitive editions', which more often than not are subtly different from the original mixes. Perhaps we are lucky that Fripp was not actively involved with the remastering of this pressing.

Finally, the two "bonus songs" are interesting, but sort of throwaways. The version of "You Burn Me Up" sounds like what migh have been intended as a single version but doesn't really offer any new insights, and the version of "North Star" is lovely, but why include it? Perhaps at the insistence of Mr. Fripp to help sell some copies of his CD, since these two tracks are easily the least interesting things on it. He's a schemer like that.

All in all it's a first rate CD issuing of a sadly overlooked work of inspiration. Grab it before it goes out of print, again.