JOHN OATES of Daryl Hall & John Oates

The music videos have never really sat well with you.

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Over the years, you’ve indicated your disdain for the Hall & Oates music videos. In fact, there’s a video of you at the 1984 New Music Seminar talking about how you got into this for the music and you like that people in the music video era expect you to be an actor also.

That New Music Seminar – was that the one where I was sitting next to Madonna?

Yes.

You know, I’ll never forget that, because that was a moment. I spoke the truth from my point of view, and you have to remember that I’d been recording for over twelve years, and Madonna was still on her first record. So interestingly enough, I said what I said because I felt that way, and I still feel that way. And she got on me about it like I was a dinosaur and didn’t realize the power of the medium, and she was one hundred percent right, because for her, the video presentation was equally important as her music because that is what made her who she was. To this day, she is still doing the exact same thing. From her point of view, she was right, and from my point of view, I was right. It was very interesting moment, where the beginning of a new generation was colliding with an older one.

And James Brown was on the panel too.

He was?!

She cut him off and said that kids worship the television now. I think to speak to what you have said, Madonna needed the videos, and the videos didn’t give you and Daryl a career, the songs did.