Daryl Hall and John Oates were among the preeminent pop acts of the ‘80s. These peerless confectioners rang up a dozen top 10 hits during the decade, including five No. 1 singles. Few of them will be unfamiliar to anyone who cocked an ear to the radio during that era. And it wasn’t just luck that they were big. Hall and Oates mated a homegrown soulfulness with a keen ear for a hook. Listening to the new four-CD anthology Do What You Want, Be What You Are makes one realize that as huge as they were, we may have taken them for granted.

This collection neatly divvies up the duo’s career into four distinct periods. Disc one surveys their coming-of-age as blue-eyed soul practitioners in Philadelphia. After offering some rare tracks by their early bands, Hall’s the Temptones and Oates’ the Masters (both of which exhibited a debt to Smokey Robinson), it reconsiders their first work together for Atlantic Records. Produced by Arif Mardin and then Todd Rundgren, the pair crafted some earthily authentic white R&B – most notably 1973’s Abandoned Luncheonette, which contained the irresistible “She’s Gone” and the equally enticing “Las Vegas Turnaround” (the first tune to reference Hall’s girlfriend and frequent songwriting partner Sara Allen).

The second disc follows Hall and Oates to RCA, where they topped the charts for the first time in 1977 with the caustic “Rich Girl.” They went on to notch some middling top 40 entries through the decade under the direction of producers Christopher Bond and David Foster, but it wasn’t until they began producing themselves in the early ‘80s that they truly caught fire. The CD climaxes with a couple of hallmarks: 1981’s “Kiss On My List,” the first of those five No. 1 singles, and a mind-blowing live rendition of Hall’s “Everytime You Go Away,” which Paul Young took to the top in 1985.

The meat of Do What You Want is heard on CD Three. Beginning with the delectable No. 5 single “You Make My Dreams” from 1981, it runs through Hall and Oates’ massive, instantly recognizable smashes – “Private Eyes,” “I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do),” “Maneater,” “Out of Touch.” These tunes still caress the ear, as do many lesser yet still memorable numbers here and a couple of selections from their concert collaboration with the Temptations’ David Ruffin and Eddie Kendrick.

For anyone who hasn’t been paying attention to the twosome’s career since the pop hits began to wane in the mid-‘80s, the box’s fourth CD offers a bounty of marvelous surprises. In recent years, Hall and Oates have reached back to their roots, and the best material here is straight-up soul music. Hall, a singer of formidable chops no matter what the material, shines on covers of R&B oldies by hometown heroes the Volcanoes and Billy Paul, while the previously unreleased “All the Way From Philadelphia” is a lovely homage to Gamble and Huff, the City of Brotherly Love’s peerless production team.

In all, this is one of the most welcome and consistently illuminating musical retrospectives imaginable.