Hall & Oates - Whole Oats

WHEN HALL AND OATES WERE JUST "WHOLE OATS"!

This is a little know album by Hall & Oates. The album is not the typical H&O stuff from the 80's, but it's an excellent album which includes one of their greatest songs ever! 'Fall In Philadelphia' is an exceptional song which is worth the price of the CD on it's own. An interesting debut from the Philly Soul Duo. July 30, 2008

good debut

This is the album that kicked off a great career. It may not be the greastest album they made but it's not bad either. It's obvious that they were looking for there sound. I would reccomend this for die hard fans like me. January 5, 2008

Obviously Not Their Best {But Still Good}

Whole Oats will be much more appreciated by those who really like Hall & Oate's music. The best tracks are I'm Sorry, All Our Love, and Fall in Philadelphia. All of which were released prior to Whole Oats as demos. The first two demos are somewhat hard to find. The demo version of Fall in Philadelphia can be found on a lot of the versions of Past Times Behind.

Also decent are Goodnight and Goodmorning, South East City Window Side, Lilly {which features a false ending} and Thank You. All these listens later, "I'm Sorry" is hands down the best track. I'm amazed it was left off Atlantic's "No Goodbyes" album {which was the best of the early Hall & Oates albums by Atlantic records}.

I'd like this album a lot more if it weren't for the songs Georgie and They Needed Eachother. Both are depressing and way too metaphoric. Rereleased without them, this album would have faired better. November 24, 2005

An adequate debut effort

1972's 'Whole Oats,' while not a spectacular debut, is
certainly a step above(and is more appealing than) their
near-disastrous third album 'War Babies' from 1974.

Half of the album is pretty good - the rocking 'I'm Sorry,'
'Fall In Philadelphia,' 'Goodnight And Goodmorning,' 'Lilly
(Are You Happy),' and the more reflective 'Waterwheel'
and 'Lazyman.'

Yes, I admit I own this one(as well as 'War Babies') on LP.

Definitely for the H&O completist/collector, but it might
hold some interest for a more adventurous casual fan who
wants to dig a little deeper than just the hits.
August 26, 2005

Definitely not the Whole of Hall and Oates!

I am a big H&O fan and have been for over 25 years and counting; not so much their "newer" stuff i.e. anything after "Big Bam Boom" (except maybe the glorious "Marigold Sky")but it was really the stuff they did before "Voices" that intrigued me and got me reeled in after "Voices" and "Private Eyes" first got me hooked.

I was deeply affected by what I had heard on "Beauty On a Back Street" as well as "Bigger Than Both of Us" and I went on to try and find as many of their albums that I could get my hands on.

A couple of them, however, I wished I hadn't had done. One of them is this album which you could if you want to be kind call an "experimental" effort but definitely no brilliant debut release by any stretch of the imagination. Another way of putting it would be to say that after this, they could only get better and believe me they really did until things started going downhill with "Ooh Yeah."

With this album, though, only "Lily, Are You Happy" really gives us some indication of what we can expect from the dynamic duo in upcoming albums. No point getting a whole album just for one song unless you are a die-hard collector and need this just to make your collection complete.

I would recommend if you can find it in some used cd store "No Goodbyes" which is a brilliant compilation of their best stuff from their first 3 albums before they changed labels for RCA from Atlantic. It's been out of print for many years and the duo themselves could probably care less about it given their acrimonious split from Atlantic but that is one compilation that would be good to get a remastered version of.

I'm still holding on to my Japanese press that I got years ago. Very precious to me indeed.... August 3, 2005

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