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Since their early days in Philadelphia, where they grew up in the suburbs, Hall and Oates, both 35, have longed to be popu­lar. Hugely popular. They weren’t looking for cult status; they wanted hits, pop recognition. Hall has been singing since he was a kid: his mother, who named him after Darryl F. Zanuck, was a vocal instructor, and she taught him early on about breath control and pitch. When he was very small, Hall regularly rode his bike to visit family friends living in a nearby black ghetto, and by high school he was cheering against white football teams at games. “I kept getting into trouble,” he has said. “All these people got down on me for hanging out with blacks: ‘Hey; flicking fruit.’ I got my first sense of oppression for being different.”