My wife, before we were married, saw that Rick Springfield was going to play the casino I worked for. She got all excited about it. I have never been a Rick Springfield fan but got tickets.
So we went to the show. I was pleasantly surprised. Rick Springfield was much heavier than I thought and it was a pretty good show. The backing band was awesome.
My soon to be wife was a bit disappointed though. She saw the ad for Rick Springfield and apparently her brain heard Bruce Springsteen.
Slee
Kids today have a far larger set of music to choose from than we did - my daughter (14yo) has albums by Frank Sinatra, One Direction, Celtic music, and Led Zep IV. With youtube and snapchat and etc, any act and style is ripe to be “discovered” and immediately shared with a “what do y’all guys think of this?” message. This has lead to some rather odd trends and styles…
Windy was 1967.
Rick Springfield was surprisingly better than one had a right to expect (he also acted on a daytime soap). His lead guitarist was Neal Geraldo (yeah, I prolly mis-spelled it), at Benetar’s guitarist (and husband).
Hall is superb. Anyone intrigued in hearing him outside the H&O framework should pick up his solo album Sacred Songs, recorded in collaboration with Robert Fripp.
When I saw the thread title, I never would have thought it would reference Hall and Oates. Never considered them one of the soft rock groups.
Yep, 80’s new wave. Although you could argue that their gorgeous first single, Sara Smile, was in that late 70’s soft-rock category. But it is a great song. Great chords.
That reminds me of Ryan Adams often slipping a Bryan Adams song into his set (one time dedicating it to an audience member: “This goes out to you, soccer mom who evidently just realized she’s at the wrong concert!”)
Thanks for mentioning J. D. Souther. Reminds me of my “in a band” phase … though mine wasn’t headbangin’, it was “light folkie rock”. Like Poco, Fool’s Gold (Fogelberg’s band), and Karla Bonoff (Oh, here she is live with Mr. Souther).
Now I have something to do this fall 
I was a kid when Hall & Oates became famous all I knew about them were a couple of pop-ish songs heard on the radio. My sister, who lives in Philly turned me on to them later.