Eagles 2.0
The 1976 version of the Eagles was far different than the group from just five years earlier. The band formed in 1971 with singer/guitarist Glenn Frey, singer/drummer Don Henley, guitarist/singer Bernie Leadon, and bassist/singer Randy Meisner. The four had served as backup singers for Linda Ronstadt and were experienced session musicians. TB They were “cosmic cowboys” CM who epitomized the country-rock sound, but “couldn’t rock convincingly.” AM
However, Frey and Henley “were cowboys only as much as Brian Wilson was a surfer. Quite at home in Los Angeles, they hung with literate songwriters like Jackson Browne and tapped into the zeitgeist of the time which was, one way or another, decadence. Frey and Henley had an ear for hooks and they had built the Eagles into one of the biggest bands in America.” CM Still, they “never seemed to get a sound big enough for their ambitions.” AM
They’d also “pretty much exhausted the cactus-and-tequila iconography of country rock as practiced by the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers.” TM Leadon, “who had given the band much of its country flavor,” AM left the group in December 1975. “Normally personnel changes for bands of this stature are cataclysmic.” TM However, the pairing of new arrival Joe Walsh, “whose banshee wail and theatrical solos sparked the James Gang and such solo singles as ‘Rocky Mountain Way,’” TM with guitarist Don Felder [who’d come on board in 1974] gave the band more “arena-rock heft.” AM
“The Eagles maintained their trademark vocal-harmony style, but where some of the group’s earlier work tended toward a pastoral, folksy feel, they now” TB had a “pronounced rock swagger.” TM
In the Studio
The Eagles entered the studio in March 1976. They recorded at Criteria Studios in Miami, Florida, as well as the Record Plant in Los Angeles.” TB They had “very little material prepared and watched the studio hours tick by as they struggled to come up with the music, arrangement, and lyrics. It was a torturously long process with Don Henley and Glenn Frey acting as dictators over the ensemble.” CRS
The group “were notoriously perfectionist in the studio” CM and, in the interest of making “a big statement…would not rush anything.” CM They “were known to nitpick over every detail in a song, sometimes spending days getting a chorus just right.” CRS With occasional diversions into touring, they managed to drag the recording process out until October.
With “changes in producer and personnel, as well as a noticeable growth in creativity, Hotel California unveiled what seemed almost like a whole new band.” AM “In the eighteen months between the release of their 1975 album One of These Nights and Hotel California in 1976, they made “a stylistic shift toward mainstream rock.” AM Henley and Frey got “in touch with a rock-star audacity they’d been missing.” TM This newer version of the Eagles “could be bombastic, but also one that made music worthy of the later tag of ‘classic rock,’ music appropriate for the arenas and stadiums the band was playing.” AM
Themes
Don Henley said, “It didn’t start out to be a concept album, but it became one after all.” CM His songs use “California as a metaphor for a dark, surreal world of dissipation; comments on the ephemeral nature of success and the attraction of excess; branches out into romantic disappointment; and finally sketches a broad, pessimistic history of America that borders on nihilism.” AM In simpler terms, Frey said, “We think that this album represents the whole world, not just California, as something elegant which has been corrupted.” CM
“No record captured the spiritual decline of America better.” CM Ironically, the band’s statement on corruption and greed came to be a critique of the Eagles themselves. CM
A Commercial Juggernaut
The Eagles had been a consistent platinum-selling band through their first four albums with 1975’s One of These Nights reaching an enviable four million in sales in the U.S. Hotel California, however, became a monster, selling over 26 million copies in the United States – more than their first four albums combined. With estimates of worldwide sales between 32 and 42 million, the album also ranks as one of the twenty best-sellers of all time.
The Songs
Here’s insights into individual songs on the album.
“New Kid in Town”
Perhaps nervous about abandoning their country-rock audience, the first single, “the gently-sung ballad” TM New Kid in Town, was rooted in their old sound. It featured Glenn Frey, who’d also taken the lead on classic country-leaning Eagles songs “Take It Easy,” “Peaceful, Easy Feeling,” “Tequila Sunrise,” and “Lyin’ Eyes.” Fans embraced it, sending it all the way to #1. It was their third trip to the top, following the Don Henley-led “Best of My Love” and “One of These Nights.” The real test, however, would be how fans reacted to the rest of the album.
“Hotel California”
The title cut was more representative of the Eagles’ new, more classic-rock-oriented sound – and a shift toward Henley as “the band’s dominant voice, both as a singer and a lyricist.” AM He wrote or- co-wrote seven of the songs on the album. Still, Felder and Walsh also “perform an amazing guitar duet, establishing the Eagles’ rock foundation.” RV Hotel California was “a sprawling epic” TL became a staple at classic rock and “may be the group’s finest work.” RV
The song “framed Hollywood…in terms so impressively vague they seemed mythic.” BL Henley said, “I meant it to be a symbolic piece about America in general, which is a land of excess. Lyrically the song deals with classical themes of conflict: darkness and light, good and evil, youth and age, the spiritual versus the secular. I guess you could say it’s a song about loss of innocence.” CM
The song had “Satanic undertones that might have been subconsciously cribbed from Jethro Tull’s ‘We Used to Know’ when the bands toured together. As for the warm smell of colitas, fans are split on whether the word is Spanish slang for cannabis buds or an easy lay. Given the band and the era, the safest guess is both.” TL
“Life in the Fast Lane”
Nowhere is that stylistic shift of the album more apparent than on Life in the Fast Lane, “the album’s super-energized rock moment” TM which “drew a line between the band’s country-tinged past and rock and roll future.” TL
The song “captured coke culture in a catchphrase.” BL It offered “the perspective of a brutal morning after…and celebrity excess.” TM The title was suggested to Frey as he and a coke dealer were zipping down the highway. CM
“Wasted Time” and “The Last Resort”
“If the title track defines the album, Wasted Time, The Last Resort, and ‘Life in the Fast Lane’ reinforce it.” CM The first two showcase Henley’s balladry at its best; “The Last Resort” may be the Eagles’ most overlooked epic.
“Victim of Love” and “Try and Love Again” and “Pretty Maids All in a Row”
The album also included “the retro Victim of Love” TM and Try and Love Again, “a plaintive country-rock ode that’s the album’s often-neglected masterstroke.” TM That was also Meisner’s only contribution to the album, both as lyricist and singer. Joe Walsh, meanwhile, contributed Pretty Maids All in a Row, an unexpected foray into balladry.
Notes
A 40th anniversary edition of the album included a live disc recorded at the L.A. Forum between October 20-22, 1976.
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