Ooh Maybe : Check List ****<i> Great Balls of Fire</i> ***<i> Good Vibrations</i> **<i> Maybe Baby</i> *<i> Running on Empty </i>

**DARYL HALL AND JOHN OATES. “Ooh Yeah!” Arista. “Ooh Yeah!” certainly is a far cry better than Hall and Oates’ last album together, 1984’s “Big Bam Boom,” which for all intents and purposes might well have been called “Ooh Noooo!” Ultimately, though, the titular exclamation point of this record stretches self-congratulation well beyond actual merit. Do we hear an “Oh well,” anyone?

At least some celebration is in order upon finding that Hall and Oates have moved closer back to their stylistic roots in Philly soul this time out rather than groping mindlessly at modernity, with timid intimations of popular black music styles like on the last album. While it may be entirely possible that--to pop historians millennia from now--the sounds of the Temptations will seem just as trendy as today’s neo-disco, in 1988 at least, Hall and Oates have taken a wiser route in stacking up more quasi-falsettos than whip-crack drum machines.

If the stylistic choices are in the bag, though, too much of the writing is timelessly banal--from cutesy clunkers like “Rockability” to failed attempts at Marvin Gaye-style social awareness like “Keep On Pushin’ Love.” On the plus side, the nifty single, “Everything Your Heart Desires,” is packed with discernibly honest human feelings, and thus doesn’t have much company on this album.

Generally M.I.A. is the searching emotional content of Hall’s excellent 1985 solo album, “Three Hearts in the Happy Ending Machine,” as well as its attention to pop craft and exploration. Of course, that one was a commercial dud. Did its sales misfortunes cause Hall to give up and go back--tail between his legs--to ultra-formulaic hit writing with Oates? Or is he just playing possum and saving the good stuff for his next solo outing?

In either case, he and his pardner won’t be getting any poorer in the meantime, because this one has candy-coated hits backed up and waiting like commuters on the 101. Roll ‘em out, chartbusters.