The Eagles Appreciation Thread

Cafe Society
1

I think The Eagles may be the most successful band ever to not get extensive critical acclaim. The Eagles are one of those bands that people tend to look down on, probably because they were successful selling MOR music in the rock era when that wasn’t particularly cool.

But critics miss the fact that it’s superb MOR music. The Eagles are great singers, Henley and Frey together are perhaps the best songwriting team ever, and they’re all excellent musicians. So while all the attention has been on the bands like The Who or the Rolling Stones, the Eagles have quietly climbed into third place in all-time record sales, behind The Beatles and Led Zeppelin.

On Wednesday night NBC aired a live two hour concert, which was excellent. It also scored the second highest ratings of the night. What other band who’s last hit was a decade earlier could go into primetime and make big ratings?

And of all the other ‘big’ bands from the 60’s and 70’s are clearly on the wane. The Beatles are mostly gone, The Who is fading, the Rolling Stones are getting on in years. But the Eagles are healthy, still look reasonably young, are playing better than they ever have, and selling out 40,000 seat arenas with $200 and $300 tickets. They could go on like this for another 15 years. And looking at the audience in the concert, it looked like a pretty even mix of generations. There were 60 year old grandpas singing alongside college kids.

I wonder if the Eagles might wind up making more money than any other musical act in the pop era. They’re fifth on the all-time record sales list, but their records are still selling strong. They released a minor re-packaged greatest hits album a couple of years ago, and it’s sold 3 million copies. Their “Hell Freezes Over” DVD is probably the best-selling music DVD ever. Their “Greatest Hits” CD is the best selling record ever (28 million copies and counting). They’re as popular now as they ever were, and their popularity seems to cross from generation to generation with no real loss in popularity. I think they are second only to the Beatles in that. Which means they’ll probably continue to sell well for decades, just like the Beatles.

I don’t think they’ve created the best art or anything, but their music is probably more accessible than any other artist’s. It’s hard-edged enough to appeal to rock fans, country enough to appeal to country fans, and beautiful enough to appeal to everyone. It’s not deep or complex. Just solid music. Their appeal is very wide, which is why they are so popular.

So, what do we think of The Eagles?

2

What’s MOR music?

3

MOR stands for Middle of the Road. In other words, non-threatening mainstream music.

I think the critics were ok with them in their early years, but as they became blander and country-rock more common, the critics moved on to other things, as they should.

4

I’m a long-time Eagles fan, but I’d still say that Don & Glenn have some really tough competition from Lennon & McCartney in that area.

An Arky, good luck at your Glover Park Day gig later today! I was at GPD a few years ago visiting friends (I used to live in DC). Have fun!

[BTW Are y’all from Dardanelle?]

5

I am currently discussing this very topic with a couple of people. One guy LOVES them, I dismiss them as the McDonald’s of their day - incredibly well-crafted and tuned to be immensely popular, but no nutritional value - and the guy with the most credibility in the discussion - a record producer - has a deep respect for thier ability to craft popular hits.

I respect McDonald’s ability to get the Big Mac right for huge appeal, but I never want to visit the restaurant.

6

Thanks!

Yep, Dardanelle is my home town. My other band members are from here, basically (DC area). Are you from there?

7

I think that they write some of the best “hooks” in the music business. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t get grabbed by stuff like I can’t tell you why.

8

I think they’re a bit weak lyrically.

From Take it to the Limit:

“But the dreams I’ve seen lately
Keep on turning out and burning out
And turning out the same”

If you’re going to try to rhyme three consecutive three syllable phrases, make them three different ones.

From Peaceful Easy Feeling:

“And I found out a long time ago
what a woman can do to your soul
Ah, but she can’t take you anyway
You don’t already know how to go”

huh?

9

Wine is not a spirit.

10

The double rhyme represents the circular motion of the singer’s dreams: They turn out and burn out and turn out and burn out etc.

The second line is an excellent example for the guys who claim “A woman made me do it.” She can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do already.

Here’s my own little Eagles/Straight Dope tribute

11

Bah. The double rhyme is due to lack of an ability to find another phrase that ends in “urning out”.

I don’t think these guys made Dylan lose any sleep.

12

I enjoyed most of their early work and then Hotel California came out and the shark was jumped (IMHO, of course).

The Long Run just plain sucked.

13

Other than “churning out”, that is.

14

Gurning out.

15

Yearning out?

16

Learning out?

Splurning out?

Returning “out”? (coming back gay?)

Hey, I’m tryin’ here! :smiley:

17

As far as I’m concerned Henley is Joe Walsh’s little bitch.

18

:smack: Of course. What was I thinking?

I’ll accept that they’re not Dylan, or Warren Zevon, or even Lennon/McCartney on the lyics front, but they aren’t as bad as you’d suggest. But music can be judged on levels other than lyrics. What makes the Eagles great isn’t their deep lyrics, or their complex chord structures, or their strange world beats. What makes them great are the perfectly crafted songs, the five-part harmonies, and the excellent musicianshp. They create little slices of life in songs, and execute them perfectly.

I mean, something must make them this popular. Take ‘Hell Freezes Over’ - When that CD came along, the Eagles hadn’t had an album out for 14 years. They had broken up for ten years. And that album wasn’t even all new material. There were three or four new songs mixed with a bunch of live versions of their hits. And the thing has gone triple platinum, and it sparked one of the biggest tours in rock history. Then they don’t produce another record for 10 more years, and now, even without a record on the market, they can still tour the biggest arenas and charge more than anyone else, and get a primetime concert on NBC that does big ratings.

I guess what got me thinking about this the most was the audience for that concert. When you see 60 year old people waving their hands over their heads and swaying back and forth with their eyes closed while an 18 year old kid beside them is mouthing the lyrics he knows by heart, it makes you stop and think. The Eagles, unlike some of the other super bands from the 60’s and 70’s, have completely broken through to new generations. That suggests to me that their music is somewhat timeless. I mean, they probably fit into the music scene better today, what with alt-country stars like Ryan Adams and Wilco coming on to the scene, than they did in the 70’s when they had to go up against the likes of Led Zepellin and the Stones and later disco.

You can’t say that about many other acts. Even the Beatles can sound a little dated here and there. But because the Eagles’ music doesn’t fit into a specific genre, it’s free to span across all of them.

19

I’m with Mr. Blue Sky.

I count a few of their songs among my all-time favorite, and after all these years I can still listen to the entire Desperado album and still enjoy it, but looking at their entire discography I’d have to say they were mostly pap, especially their 80s and later stuff.

But OMG does Don Henley’s voice make me swoon.

20

Most critics think Hotel California was their best record, and it’s usually the only Eagles record that gets five star reviews. Look at the track list:

Hotel California
New Kid in Town
Life in the Fast Lane
Wasted Time
Victim of Love
Pretty Maids all in a Row
Try and Love Again
The Last Resort

Of those, I’d say only the last two songs are weak, and the first four tracks on that album rank as some of the best work the Eagles ever did.

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I know that’s a common viewpoint, but I don’t get it. Probably because the two most popular tracks (“The Long Run” and “Heartache Tonight”) were very weak for being so popular. My least favorite tracks on the record. But I think “I can’t Tell You Why” and “The Sad Cafe” are a couple of the most beautiful songs ever written, “Teengage Jail” just rocks, “King of Hollywood” exudes the creepiness of the title character, and I love “The Disco Strangler” because it’s a disco song intentionally written to be almost impossible to dance to, and I find that hilarious. I think this is their most under-rated album, and I’d put it up there with Hotel California, personally.

I agree that their output since then has been way too heavily skewed towards pap, with only “Learn to be Still” from Hell Freezes Over being up to the quality of their early stuff.