There I was, minding my own business, when a half price Hall and Oates compilation entered my line of vision. Considering the fact that Sony/BMG issued an "Essential" collection in 2005 - the 2004 "Ultimate" collection with a different cover - I wasn't surprised to find the 2001 "Very Best of" in the bargain bin. At $9.99, it seemed a good enough reason to investigate an act that I had long ago tossed onto the heap of the overplayed and the obvious "soundtrack to a decade" claims that only served to remind me that my decade was quite a bit different than others perceived it to be. Plus, the track list actually included a few "single version" notations - usually a sign of a decent compilation. Of particular interest to me was "It's A Laugh", a song I loved back in 1978, but hadn't heard in years.
Even then, I recognized that the chorus was, indeed, laughable and that the song may have been best titled "It's A Rant". Still, the noise around it is pretty damn good: a densely arranged wall of noise as deceptively impenetrable as most rants are with a lyric that is so beautifully bitter and dismissively snide that I actually can't help but laugh. Taken at face value, it was probably too mean spirited to deserve more than it's #20 peak, but that peak suggests that some folks found some relief in hearing the same tired domestic dialogue that seemed to dominate their daily lives set to a different beat. I know I did.
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