John Oates, more than your average baby boomer-era Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, has embraced the modern singles-focused era. And not just because he was able to leverage that into a multi-guest success solo story like A Good Road to Follow.
He thinks Hall and Oates’ recent popular resurgence can be tied directly to the democratization of tastes in the internet era — something that’s lessened the influence of old-school music journalists who rarely gave the hitmaking duo the respect they deserved.
“Because of limited outlets and things like magazines, they became tastemakers in a way,” Oates tells Steez. “The new generations just listen to the music with an open mind. They like getting turned on to things from their friends. They like turning their friends on to things they’ve discovered. This is the positive side of the Internet and the virtual world.”
As such, he says Hall and Oates may actually be more popular than ever, some three decades after their last charttopping single. This year’s induction into the rock hall only solidified their third-act comeback.
“Now that those tastemakers don’t have the forum to basically jam their subjective opinions down people’s throats, it doesn’t matter anymore,” Oates adds. “I’ve never met a musician yet who really didn’t like in some way what we’ve done. For me, that’s way more important than anything a rock journalist might have said or not said about us in the ’60s or ‘70s or ‘80s or whatever.”
