1975 Hall & Oates – Daryl Hall & John Oates

Daryl Hall & John Oates is the self-titled fourth studio album by Hall & Oates, and their first album released by RCA Records in 1975. It is sometimes referred to as The Silver Album because of its metallic glam rock style cover. This remarkable cover was made by Pierre LaRoche, the same artist who created Ziggy Stardust for the rock-singer David Bowie. It’s also been noted by how Hall and Oates were made to look like women (Oates’s moustache notwithstanding) on the cover.

“Grounds for Separation”, according to Daryl Hall, was going to be used in the Sylvester Stallone movie Rocky. Frank Stallone, Sylvester’s brother, had been in a band with John Oates called Valentine and this connection got them a shot at an appearance on the soundtrack. The movie, however, was slow to get off the ground, and Hall and Oates withdrew the song. “Alone Too Long” is the theme song for the television show Hello Ladies, which premiered on HBO in 2013. “Gino (The Manager)” is about the duo’s manager at the time. The record jacket insert reads “And introducing Tommy Mottola as ‘Little Gino.’ ” In 2009, the song was remixed and included on the duo’s 4-CD box set Do What You Want, Be What You Are.

In 2000, Buddah Records re-released the album with two bonus tracks (“What’s Important to Me” and “Ice”). It featured an album cover in which Daryl and John are overly made up with make-up to the point where they looked like women. Hall would later say in an interview for VH1’s Behind the Music that he looked like “the girl I always wanted to go out with” on that album cover