I find The Eagles one of the more puzzling bands in my record collection. This is mostly because I find them genuinely difficult to like. There’s no doubting their talents, and I would say that two of their songs have to rank as two of the greatest songs ever written. Maybe there are one or two more threatening to break into that echelon, but even if that is the case, they are an extraordinarily difficult band to really like. Perhaps because there is no myth to buy into, perhaps because there is no story of a gang of young friends living in holes, paying their dues, and getting through by believing in the music, etc etc. Their story reads as if they got together purely because it was an easy option, and then stayed together purely because it made them a lot more money, then broke up because they became too bloated and ego-fuelled for their own good and then got back together purely because of the size of the cheque being dangled before their eyes. In short, it’s rare that you ever feel that they truly enjoyed their work, ever lost themselves in the music, ever approached their recordings as more than just a scientific formulaic money machine. When you listen to The Beatles play Long Tall Sally, or the Stones playing Brown Sugar, or Buddy Holly singing Rave On, Elvis performing All Shook Up, Queen playing Tie Your Mother Down, there is an inescapable feeling that these people would do this job for free. And it’s a nice feeling because you think that they’re in it for the right reasons. And it is gigantically conspicuous by its absence in the back catalogue of the Eagles.
BUT – all that being said, you can’t disguise great music – and the Eagles are responsible for plenty of that. Likeable or not, you could put together a 20 track CD of their work and every song would be really, really good – and like I said before, a few of them would be truly great. More specific reasons for my general dislike of several elements of the Eagles setup will be detailed in the review, and here we go.
What you must Own.
Obviously, Hotel California. It didn’t sell all those copies by accident, and it really is a pretty special album. The problem with it is that when they were recording it, the band were so packed full of drugs they’d have bled cocaine if you’d cut them. They were falling out left right and centre and had, for some reason, decided that the album could not be released until every last part of every last song was absolutely perfect. That’s admirable in theory, but of course the net effect is that the final takes, the ones that ended up on the album, were the 137th take of each part, and so while they are as smooth as a baby’s bottom, they have also had the life, soul, fun, energy and rawness taken entirely out of them. There are some incredible songs on this album, but a lot of their potential is dampened by how utterly soul-less they sound. The worst culprits are Wasted Time, Pretty Maids All In A Row and Life in the Fast Lane, three songs brimming with emotion but that sound so polished they’ve become entirely sterile. It does work on some songs, New Kid in Town, Last Resort and Try and Love Again are all well suited to this style, and of course the title track will stand out forever in the pantheon of truly great rock songs. The music is hypnotic, the guitar lines genuinely mesmerising and the lyrics are mystifying, confusing and thought-provoking. The story of the song is terrifyingly beautiful and the guitar solos at the end are delivered with perhaps the only true emotion on the entire album. The other songs are excellent- the closest the album comes to a bad song is Victim of Love, which has the redeeming quality that it was recorded live, thus injecting at least a tiny bit of energy that might otherwise have been missing.
Hell Freezes Over. This will be an odd choice in some people’s eyes, but there are two very good reasons you should look at this album ahead of many of their other efforts. Firstly, the band is live, and hugely overproduced. This leaves us with some energetic performances, and an edge to the songs that is noticeably absent on the albums. Secondly, the band are older – and the songs have had longer to mature. There isn’t a song on here that isn’t better than it sounds on the original album – this is especially true of the songs on Hotel California. Perhaps Hotel California itself doesn’t sound better, but it’s so re-worked it’s hard to compare, and this version is brilliant too. The ageing of the band hasn’t affected their vocal skills either, the harmonies are better than ever, and as for Don Henley’s voice, his delivery on Wasted Time and Desperado (made more impressive given that he is also drumming) is spine-tinglingly fantastic. Bad points? Well, the new songs are pretty average – (that is me at my most generous by the way) – and the album is missing some standout tracks from the concert, which are available on the DVD. Still, these are minor gripes, and it shows the band as a 5 piece, in what was really their final hurrah before yet more in-fighting, lawsuits and departures.
Desperado – back in 1974, the band still felt like they had something to prove, and certainly hadn’t disappeared up their own backsides, and they produced this concept album about outlaws in the American West, a backdrop against which few things could fail. The songs are not as strong individually as they are collectively, although the title track is a remarkably beautiful piece of songwriting and makes the album worth owning on its own. But the rest of the story is well thought out and constructed, and if you have 35 minutes one day to yourself, you could do a lot worse than throwing this album on.
What you should think carefully about.
On The Border, One of These Nights, Eagles.
These albums have many a decent moment. Their debut is a little bit suspect, but solid enough with some carefreely enjoyable songs on, and as their confidence grew, you start to hear them building towards the egocentric drug-fuelled blind spot that was Hotel California, whilst retaining some of the energy that they seemed to lose with every year that went by. Songs like Lyin Eyes & Take It To The Limit are really genuinely boring and overdone – but at least the On The Border album does manage to keep some youthful abandon in songs like Already Gone and Good Day in Hell, the first songs to feature Don Felder on guitar, an addition to the group whose importance cannot be overstated.
What to avoid.
The Long Run – there are some decent songs on this album, the title track and the incredible Sad Cafe to name the best – but the album reeks of mediocrity and clearly tells the story of a band completely unable to continue under their own self-inflicted pressures and lack of genuine unity within the group. By the time the group went on tour with this album, tensions were so high that one of their concerts at Long Beach famously ended with Frey and Felder coming to blows backstage, and this lack of camaraderie is very evident on this album.
Long Road Out Of Eden – I have often gotten the impression that Don Henley feels that he isn’t considered as important as he thinks he is. Now I know it’s famously stupid to have a go at Henley, because he will sue anyone for anything – so I hope he doesn’t read this. If you are reading this and decide to sue me, well done – you’ve just made my point for me. Anyway, his solo career, and even some Eagles songs like The Last Resort are filled with what I’m sure he considers scathing exposés of American hypocrisy and the evils of consumerism. That’s all well and good, but when you write a 10 minute song about how corporations and capitalism are destroying the values of the men who wrote the Declaration of Independence and then sign a deal meaning that your album is sold exclusively via Wal-Mart, you really are asking for it. And it’s a horribly slimy film that never really lifts from the album, as Frey attempts to get some good old fashioned country into the album, and doesn’t really succeed, Walsh continues to sing about what a crazy old drunk he is, and Henley basically whinges for the entire album about how awful America is. There are some good songs on here, for sure – the lyrics to the title track are really good (if only you could believe that they were heartfelt), the lead single How Long is fun (but also is one they used to play 30 years ago when they cared) and the opening “No More Walks In The Wood” is really nice. But then you hear about how the “band”, the “group” recorded the album, which basically involved being in the same room as little as often – not out of malice or anger this time, but out of sheer lethargy and ambivalence, recording 3 part harmonies in three different states etc etc...it just doesn’t sit right. Also, it’s a double album and there isn’t nearly enough good material to fill that kind of space. I reckon you could squeeze a 9 song album out of this material, with 7 of them being good songs. So, all in all – it’s possible that I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to like this album even if it was packed full of good songs, but that doesn’t end up being a worry.
There is an argument to be made that the band were never genuinely relevant, but always felt that they ought to be, and this childish feeling of not being allowed to sit at the big boys table leaves the listener with the impression that here was a band so desperate for credibility that they ended up scuppering their best chance of ever achieving it. But for all that, there were moments in this speckled career when their star truly shone, and those moments ought to be enjoyed by fans of genuine musical achievement.
Happy Eagling!
Mr S.
