Great, now I’ve got “Lyin’ Eyes” in my head. I hate you Dragon Phoenix…
Even while I’m typing this, I can hear…“my oh my, you sure know how to arrange things…” in the back of my head. Somebody please hand me a razorblade…
Jon
My pleasure. 
Best ever? The Eagles aren’t even the best group w/a bird name (the Byrds & the Dixie Hummingbirds are better), though I will admit they are better than Flock of Seagulls.
They also aren’t even the best group w/a name of a football team (They Might Be Giants are better), though I will admit they are better than the Jets.
They aren’t even the best group to have a song that doubles as a Mel Gibson movie (Bruce Springsteen & the E-Street Band are better), though I will admit they are better than the 5 Man Electrical Band.
They aren’t even the best artist to have a song that doubles as a Salma Hayek movie (Aretha Franklin’s better), though I will admit they are better than the Escape Club.
As long as we are on the subject: Why, oh why did they bother to get back together and record some of the worst shit ever put out?
I can see cashing in on the fame by touring. Rehash your shit from the glory days and keep Joe Walsh out of the gutter for a year or two. Play “Life in the fastlane” and “Hotel California” and eat nice backstage food and maybe score with a tooth-less old groupy once in a while. Fine.
But you guys have the nerve to record shit like “Whole in the World” and call it “Eagles”? You should all be sodomized by a really big thing that sodomizes. You should be forced to call everyone in the English speaking world, alaphabeticly, and apologize.
Some people can’t quit while they are still ahead.
Actual headline: “Church ends probe of Gay Bishop”
Uh, thats “Hole” I assume.
It still sucks.
I scream, you scream, we all kill kittens for ICE CREAM!
Me too. The “let’s discuss” bit made me think, “Come on, let it be a Linda Richman gag, please let it be a Linda Richman gag…”
All IMHO, of course:
The Eagles in their heyday epitomized all the wretched excesses of 70s arena-rock, combined with lyrics that bordered on the comically cliched. When they came up with something new, such as “Hotel California,” it was wildly overdramatized, half-baked mysticism (see also Fleetwood Mac) that took itself so ridiculously seriously as to preclude anyone’s even attempting to parody it.
They were (are) talented musicians, without a doubt; but talent isn’t nearly enough. And today, they aren’t helping matters by leading the hideous trend toward falling back on music we’ve heard a million times and pretending it’s still “rock and roll” when what it actually is is safe, non-threatening comfort food. Rock and Roll Muzak.
I must admit that I haven’t heard much (or maybe any) of their music beyond what’s on the classic rock stations, but I’ve heard enough of the songs being presented here by their fans to feel pretty confident that I’ve got a representative sample of what’s considered their best work.
To be clear, I’m not bashing the Eagles’ fans; as my father likes to say, that’s why they make so many different flavors of ice cream.
[Billy Madison] I disagree. They are a very good group, but I think the Beatles are the best musical group ever. [/Billy Madison]
I always prefered Gram Parsons 
The worst thing is, Don Henley roots are in the same Detroit proto-punk asskicking rock and roll scene that spawned the Stooges, MC5 and the Bob Segar System. You would have thought he would have came up with something with a little more balls than the Eagles.
Jon
Aaaaahh…I see that I have been misread. I did not say that I thought the Eagles were the greatest group of all time…I posed it as a question:
“The Eagles the greatest group of all time??”
Then I went on to say that I did, indeed think they were fantastic, had something to say on many levels and were successful at crossing genres…
The comment “greatest group of all time” came from a friend of mine, and I thought I would see what YOU folks had to say about…
Didn’t think I would be read as thinking the Eagles were “the greatest” myself…
Actually, I can think of others that were “better” in the different genres the Eagles performed in…
But I stand by my own opinion that they were fantastic…
- Dirk
Hotel California is an awful song, in my opinion.
The Eagles are an awful band, in my opinion.*
*The exceptions are Witchy Woman and New Kid in Town.
Best American band ever, at least.
And Henley’s solo albums, End of the Innocence and Inside Job are great.
Umm, nitro, Glenn Frey is the one from Detroit–Henley’s from Texas.
Umm…oh. well…uh…I knew that, I just wanted to see if you were paying attention!
Jon
I could swear though, that I read an article with eiter Iggy or Wayne Kramer, about how Henley would talk shit about the 5 and the Stooges because he was jelous of how they were getting big, but he’d come over to the MC5s house with Bob Segar and act like he was their biggest fan. I read it a long time ago, in the 90’s when you couldn’t open a zine without reading something about the the MC5 or Iggy, so I’m probably remembering it wrong
Jon
The Eagles are victim of a certain type of rock condescension - that if a band isn’t ‘edgy’, or writes deep, socially relevant lyrics, then its junk. Rolling Stone is guilty of this, as are a lot of other rock critics.
But Elvis wasn’t edgy. Frank Sinatra didn’t sing deep, socially significant songs. People who rate them low because they’re not The Doors or Punk or The Stones are guilty of judging them by the wrong standard.
Just look at this song list, written over a period of only about seven years:
*Take It Easy
Witchy Woman
Peaceful Easy Feeling
Tequila Sunrise
Desperado
Already Gone
Best of My Love
One of These Nights
Lyin’ Eyes
Take It To the Limit
After the Thrill is Gone
Hotel California
New Kid In Town
Life in the Fast Lane
Wasted Time
Victim of Love
The Long Run
I Can’t Tell You Why
The Disco Strangler
Heartache Tonight
Teenage Jail
The Sad Cafe
*
I repeat - that’s over a space of only seven years. There are very, very few artists who can boast a list of songs that strong over so short a time. Given the impact on music and the culture that the Eagles have had, it’s sometimes hard to remember that they really only existed as a full-fledged songwriting group for a very short period of time.
It makes you wonder what the Eagles could have created if they had stayed together throughout the 80’s, rather than splitting up and then getting together 20 years later.
“Take It Easy”
Co-written by Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey, and first appeared on Jackson Browne’s “For Everyman.”
To my way of thinking, the Eagles were the quintessential 1970s, California-sound band. As a reviewer once said, “Music for the affluent hip. Something to put on after the kids went to bed.”
To quote Dennis Leary “I’ve got 2 words for Don Henley, Joe fuckin’ Walsh”.
unclviny
Pink Floyd is the greatest band of all time.
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The Eagles?
Just say that I had a super-powerful laboratory that could purify absolutely anything. And just say that I wanted to purify bland. So I got all these things that are really really bland, put them all into my bland purifying machine and squeezed out the very essence of bland (kept, of course, in a special magnetised chamber, lest it suck all interest out of everything around it).
And say I used that essence of bland to make an LP record, and put that LP record on my turntable and played the essence of bland.
That music would still be more interesting than the Eagles.
(No, Sam Stone, I don’t require a band to be “edgy” - just entertaining.)
The Eagles have not only written some of the worst songs known to mankind, they single-handedly took rock n’ roll from being a music that was counter-cultural into something that you could play without offending anyone (except those with good taste). Rock n’ roll was vibrant and exciting prior to the Eagles. It still was post-Eagles, but it had been tainted.
I think the Eagles could validly claim to be the worst band of all time. You know that icky Spandau Ballet song, True? Better than the Eagles. You know the mindless pap of Avril Lavigne’s Sk8er Boi? Better than the Eagles - and possessing lyrics of greater depth, too.
You know that idiotic dance hit out of the UK right now, The Fast Food Song? Bett… OK, the Eagles are better than that. But The Fast Food Song will disappear in a month or so. The Eagles will haunt Classic Rock radio forever.
I’m shocked. I’m stunned. I’m flabbergasted.
Sam Stone and I are in complete agreement on something.
Is this a sign of the apocalypse?