The impression given by today's style magazines and the likes of Franz Ferdinand is that the 1980s were an inordinately arty time when bands crafted pioneering music out of punky-funky rhythms, modelled art terrorist chic and spend their time poring over Russian novels. But for most people the decade was more about Margaret Thatcher and Miami Vice's Don Johnson, a tanned TV policeman who routinely overlooked his own department's crimes against tailoring. Soundtracking it all were Hall and Oates.

The biggest selling duo of all-time, their silk-smooth vision of blue-eyed soul occupied the space between predecessors the Isley Brothers and Stylistics, and spiritual offspring Hue and Cry and Wet Wet Wet.

Their audience is still here, parking their Audis and revealing that their daughters have been named after the song Sara Smile. Hall and Oates haven't changed much either. Darryl Hall resembles an extra in Baywatch, while John Oates is a pint-sized composite of various mid-1980s permed-and-'tached Liverpool midfielders.

However, their music sounds better than anyone who took refuge in the arty stuff might remember. Hall's voice has gained subtlety and soulfulness, perhaps because his trousers no longer threaten his reproductive organs. Every second song produces that ghastly 1980s relic, the clap-along. But there are moments when it's difficult not to be seduced by the gossamer immaculacy of songs conjuring up passionate encounters involving Lamborghinis and white socks. Because these songs are now normally only allowed out in public on Norwich radio stations at 4am, their relentless procession of monster hits is sobering: One On One, She's Gone, Private Eyes ... As I Can't Go For That turns into a ridiculously indulgent 20-minute smorgasbord, Hall and Oates seem like the guiltiest of pleasures, but a pleasure, all the same.

· At Hammersmith Apollo, London (0870 606 3400), May 11. Then touring.