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EAGLES
(1972)
Key Tracks: "Take it Easy," "Witchy Woman,"
"Peaceful Easy Feeling"
Quick Take: Bringing together several strains of
lily-white Sixties Southern California pop — the Beach Boys'
harmonies, the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield's folk-rock, Poco and
the Flying Burrito Brothers' mix of rural country and
back-to-nature hippie music — the Eagles fashioned a sound on
their debut that was so doggone easy to listen to, there was
absolutely no reason not to like it. Breezy songs like "Peaceful
Easy Feeling" would provide the template for a new decade of
mainstream rock — one in which the raw political activism and
intoxicating musical experimentation of the previous decade would
give way to a laid-back, self-centered cocktail of sex, drugs and
rock & roll.
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DESPERADO
(1973)
Key Tracks: "Tequila Sunrise," "Desperado"
Quick Take: Except for all the nods to outlaws and
references to booze, poker and cheatin' women, this is one mess of
concept album — a requisite for any "serious" rock band in
the '70s. But who cares about narrative when you have such
seductive melodies? If you could get beyond the embarrassingly
romanticized image of the rock star as misunderstood outlaw and the
weirdly misogynistic worldview, this collection of banjo-fueled
rockers, country-rock weepers and acoustic-based cowboy ballads
provided the perfect backdrop to late-night, dorm-room tequila
shots and bong hits.
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ON THE BORDER
(1974)
Key Tracks: "Already Gone," "James Dean," "Best of
My Love"
Quick Take: That the Eagles' first two albums were
the antithesis of soul made the title track of their third album
— in which they attempt a Temptations-style R&B/disco
synthesis — come as a shock, although the band would move
further in this direction on subsequent releases. On the
Border was more hard rock than disco, though, and a major shot
of adrenaline (or some such substance) for a band heretofore
thought of simply as a typical Southern California country-pop
combo. But the two ballads — "My Man," a loving tribute to
dead country-rock icon Gram Parsons, and the Number 1 AM radio hit
"Best of My Love" — are what kept the band's patented stamp
on its best album to date.
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ONE OF THESE NIGHTS
(1975)
Key Tracks: "One of These Nights," "Lyin' Eyes,"
"Take It To the Limit"
Quick Take: If the previous album marked the end
of the Eagles' innocence, this one was the beginning of the band's
ascent to stardom and eventual Hollywood crash and burn. On vinyl
copies of One of These Nights, the debauchery had reached
such a level you could practically sniff out the traces of cocaine
in between the grooves. With synthesizers worked into the banjo
plucking of the instrumental "Journey of the Sorcerer," the Eagles
were at once inventing New Age music and becoming as much of a
cosmic-cowboy hoax as the false spirituality in the Carlos
Castaneda book series that inspired the song's title.
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THEIR GREATEST HITS (1971-1975)
(1976)
Quick Take: It's not hard to understand why this
became the best-selling album in U.S. history, with more than 29
million copies sold to date. It capitalizes on the band's strongest
suits — Don Henley and Glenn Frey's breezy, laid-back
harmonies and lyrics representing American's most revered trait:
rugged individuality. Walk into any bar in any town, throw a buck
into the jukebox and play "Take It Easy," "Peaceful Easy Feeling,"
"Desperado," "Best of My Love," "Take It To the Limit," "Lyin'
Eyes," etc., and watch folks throw their arms around each other and
drunkenly sing along. These are the songs that inspired subsequent
pop, rock and country stars from Hootie & the Blowfish to
Sheryl Crow to Garth Brooks.
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HOTEL CALIFORNIA
(1976)
Key Tracks:: "Hotel California," "New Kid in
Town," "Life in the Fast Lane"
Quick Take: With Bernie Leadon having departed and
taken his banjo with him, the Eagles' shed themselves of their
country-rock past for good. This album is pure mainstream arena
rock. It's also dark as a dungeon. Behind the sugary melodies of
Henley and Frey, and the cool riffs of new guitarist Joe Walsh,
these meditations on cocaine abuse, empty sex and the shallowness
of wealth are... like, a bummer, man. "Life in the Fast Lane," "The
Last Resort" and the title track introduced a California that
looked less like the Beach Boys' endless summer and more like Hell
on Earth. The pessimism of Henley's lyrics — "We are all just
prisoners here, of our own device" and "They call it paradise, I
don't know why" — would reappear in his later solo hits like
"The End of the Innocence."
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THE LONG RUN
(1979)
Key Tracks: "In the City," "Heartache
Tonight"
Quick Take: If Hotel California was the
Eagles' most ambitious album to date, The Long Run was
their absolute least challenging. It sold well, reached Number 1
and spawned lots of hits (the old-style rock of Frey's "Heartache
Tonight," the faux soul of new bassist Timothy Schmit's "I Can't
Tell You Why" and the semi-beach music sound of the title track),
but it was little more than a boogie album for frat parties. Titles
of other songs — "The Disco Strangler," "The Greeks Don't
Want No Freaks" — were representative of the general
shallowness of the album. But by now, the Eagles were virtually
over. Infighting, ego clashes and overindulgence had taken their
toll.
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EAGLES LIVE
(1980)
Key Tracks: "Seven Bridges Road"
Quick Take: There's no point to this collection.
Each track — save for the two from Joe Walsh's solo catalog
and a harmony vocal workout on the Steve Young-penned folksong
"Seven Bridges Road" — sound exactly like their studio
counterparts, with the only difference being the added crowd
noise.
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EAGLES GREATEST HITS, VOLUME 2
(1982)
Quick Take: Their Greatest Hits was a
smart, well-sequenced set of Eagles classics from their first four
albums. It had an arc, a flow; it went from their country-rock
beginnings to the slick, mainstream rock of One of These
Nights. This pointless set, on the other hand, culls only from
Hotel California, The Long Run and Eagles
Live. If you're an Eagles fan, you already should own
Hotel California — the rest of the songs here are
just the band's highest-charting turkeys.
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HELL FREEZES OVER
(1994)
Key Track: "Get Over It"
Quick Take: Except for one of the four new songs
— "The Girl from Yesterday," in which Frey attempts to sound
exactly like Gram Parsons, instead of just kind of like
him, as he did in the old days — this comeback is a total
wash. Predictable new songs from Henley and the others, and
note-perfect live performances of old hits, most of which already
appeared on the 1980 live set. The title comes from a comment Frey
made when asked if the Eagles would ever perform together again:
"When Hell freezes over," he said; when the boys did decide to
perform again, they did it for heretofore unheard of ticket
prices.
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LONG ROAD OUT OF EDEN
(2007)
Key Tracks: "Fast Company," "Last Good Time in
Town" Quick Take: The band's double-disc studio
comeback is, if nothing else, ambitious. Meticulously recorded,
with great attention to making most of the 20 songs sound exactly
like classic Eagles hits. Oh yes, and one anti-war opus with
Arabic-music shadings that clocks in at more than 10 minutes. The
most telling title is "Business as Usual"; the most typical
sounding track is "Waiting in the Weeds." But most of the tunes
— especially the single "Busy Being Fabulous" — are
soft-rock yawners that post-Eagles country stars like Tim McGraw
have perfected in the years since Hotel California. Still,
if this turns out to be the Eagles' last album, it's a helluva lot
better than The Long Run.