Thursday, February 28, 2019

You Make My Dreams



The 80s.  Cable TV was the new big thing and with it, MTV: all music videos all the time.  One of the first acts to make MTV their home was Hall & Oates, and their first big hit of the MTV era was this one, "You Make My Dreams Come True."  The video is an early no-frills effort, but it pops with high spirits and musical energy, and suggests the best of being young in the 80s.  Daryl Hall's t-shirt with a suit coat would become a hot style with Don Johnson and  Miami Vice, and it has never quite left since.  The video also has an improvised, antic, even goofy quality that would soon be replaced by ever-elaborate mini-movies and formalized dance moves in MTV's heyday decade.

I liked this song a lot at the time, as I did their earlier "Rich Girl" (think I had one or two in mind when I heard it) and their  remake of the Righteous Brothers "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling," which got to be unusual in that John Oates had the lead vocal.  But those were about all of their songs I remember, so I was surprised to read that Hall & Oates sold the most records of any duo in the rock era.  That would include the Everly Brothers and Simon & Garfunkel (before Paul Simon went solo.)  Whatever.  They were valid musicians, and Hall in particular continues in different venues to this day.  Enjoy this one--a bit of infectious fun from a weird decade.

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