The very title of Interpreting the Masters suggests that the Bird the Bee are digging into a catalog of a widely respected pop songwriter -- a Burt Bacharach, perhaps, or a Jimmy Webb. That’s not the case: children of the ‘80s that they are, singer Inara George and producer Greg Kurstin have chosen Daryl Hall John Oates for the first volume of Interpreting the Masters, a sly move that reveals both their age and intended audience -- i.e., ex alt-rockers raised on new wave and now settling into a tasteful, hipster middle age, hauling around kids dressed in Ramones t-shirts -- and a reflection of Hall Oates’ increasing reputation as soul-pop songwriters and record-makers. The Bird the Bee don’t dig deeply into Hall Oates catalog -- there’s none of the burnished folk-rock of Whole Oates, nor do they pluck album tracks like “Looking for a Good Sign” off of Private Eyes -- they simply choose the biggest hits, then give them a slyly modern update, one that consciously recalls the modernist new wave productions of the duo’s biggest hits yet fits within the Bird the Bee’s nicely tailored AAA pop. So if Interpreting the Masters, on the surface, provides no surprises, why is it such a wonderful surprise as a whole? Perhaps it’s because the Bird the Bee manage to make these very familiar hits sound fresh without radically reinventing them. That in itself is a much trickier move than turning these all into slow acoustic dirges, but it’s better still because these arrangements are true to both Hall Oates and George & Kurstin. The Bird the Bee illustrate just how much they’ve learned with their introductory original “Heard It on the Radio,” a song about the tunes they’re about to sing that holds its own with the covers, but the heart of the album lies in these covers of ‘80s staples: they shift the spotlight just enough to prove how good both the original song and singles are, and by never drawing attention to their own performance and arrangements, the Bird the Bee prove just how good they are too. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi

1		Heard It On the Radio
2		I Can't Go for That
3		Rich Girl
4		Sara Smile
5		Kiss On My List
6		Maneater
7		She's Gone
8		Private Eyes
9		One On One
10		4th of July