These guys certainly boogie more than the bluegrass sellouts who populate the vaguely country-oriented mainstream of contemporary American rock, and they certainly write more memorable songs. But this culminates the reactionary individualism that country-rock has come to epitomize in the counterculture. What's worse, the country orientation bespeaks not roots but a lack of them, so that in the end the product is suave and synthetic--brilliant, but false. And not always all that brilliant, either. B
I prefer the Allman Brothers.
I fuckin love the Eagles, man.
Take It Easy is country rock perfection.
>>129404373Cuckgau was jelly that the Eagles got laid more than him.
>>129404373Pre-Hotel Cali Eagles are just so fucking boring.
>On November 18, 1980, LAPD officers visited Henley's home while investigating reports of a teenage runaway. The missing 15 year old girl was found in the house. The officers also found a different 16 year old laying passed out naked on the living room floor. Henley subsequently pled guilty to contributing to the delinquency of a minor.[2]
>>129404562wonder what those girls are up to these days and how they feel about the whole thing
>>129404512not fair. Chug All Night is a sick rocker.
>>129404562so basically, back when teenage girls went missing in LA the cops automatically knew to check Henley's house
>>129404373Train Leaves Here This Morning is a goated song
a lot of people hate the Eagles for the fact that they seemed to be wallowing in the 70s post-hippie burnout zeitgeist instead of criticizing it like Neil Young did. i mean, let's face it that decade was pretty shit in a lot of ways with a busted economy, soaring inflation, and out of control crime.
>>129404940it's hard to respect a group whose biggest seller was a greatest hits comp
>>129404940>let's face it that decade was pretty shit in a lot of ways with a busted economy, soaring inflation, and out of control crimeat least they had good music then
>>129404650one of those great deep album cuts the Eagles had that got ignored in favor of their grossly overplayed AM hits
I think that there is some resentment to the success to creativity ratio as compared to bands like the Burritos and artists like Gram Parsons. The West Coast country rock sound was not invented by the Eagles nor did they make any huge artistic contributions to it (until HC). But man they sure got rich.
>>129405005>one of those great deep album cuts the Eagles had that got ignored in favor of their grossly overplayed AM hitsthere you go. 90% of sheeple never heard those songs because they always just went out and bought GH Vol. 1 or HC. the first four Eagles albums get forgotten.
plus fuck them for starting the trend of paying obscene ticket prices to see boomer music acts
Too polished and kind of the antithesis of the punk rock ethos critics were big on back then. My cousin hung out with Bernie Leadon once and he said the Eagles were a pretty damn totalitarian band to be in, Henley and Frey were absolute dictators and you did not question any of their edicts. Change one note in a solo and Don would flip out. No fun allowed.
>>129404940As much as I like Neil Young, he's just been a cantankerous asshole this whole time.
>>129404940the Eagles could be the safest rock group of the 70s, smug to the point where even the worst of hippiedom looked humble. unlike a lot of their contemporaries they have no humor, swagger, self-awareness, looseness to their playing etc. there's no rock there, not even the cuteness of Beach Boys style sunshine pop. a lot of people consider the Eagles to represent the worst elements of the decade, plus the ease of how the counterculture could be monetized.sure, Steely Dan were slick as it got but the actual lyrics and songwriting were filthy and feral as all get. the Eagles just felt focus grouped for maximum safe appeal.
>>129405440>>129405188I have heard some suggest that the lack of the blues base in their music is the source of much of the disdain for the Eagles. U2 would seem to suffer from a similar fate.I can appreciate the feeling that the perfectionism and lack of rawness in the Eagles sound can become grating after a point.
>>129405440While I wouldn't deny Henley/Frey's songwriting chops, they could be very calculating and tended to feel like they were focus-grouping everything to hell and back.
>>129404373Cuckgau didn't always nail it but he did have the Eagles figured out to a tee from the first album and without the benefit of 30 years of hindsight.
>>129404373>But this culminates the reactionary individualism that country-rock has come to epitomize in the counterculture.Cuckgau's biggest problem is scene and political faggotry having to infuse every artistic analysis. Cause otherwise it's a good review.
>>129405544he bullied solo McCartney just as hard tbqh
>>129405619Paul is really as nice as it's possible for the nearest thing to a music deity to be, even if his solo albums are marshmallow fluff that rivals the worst 50s housewife pop. I think Christgau had it in for the Eagles because their professional-sounding music sounds good on the surface but gets ugly once you realize how cynical and self-congratulatory it is. This same impression is gotten from solo David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Jackson Browne, etc.
>>129405440I think some filth finally started creeping in on Hotel California, and it was just what the doctor ordered. (Still soft as shite, mind.) And then they really got cooking on The Long Run. And then they fucking broke up!Henley has one of the best "asshole" voices in popular music, that nigga got smugness pumping out of every pore. Imagine what he could've done with some Becker–Fagen lyrics. Or even better: a coked-up, self-loathing Eagles soldiering on through the first Reagan admin, somewhere between yacht rock and dodgy new wave, finally getting obliterated by MTV.
>>129405689there was just something about California that bred this terminal smugness in musicians
>>129405689that cynical emptiness of the Eagles somehow worked anyway, people bought into it and maybe just like 50s housewife pop or Taylor Swift it was exactly the escapism they wanted
>>129405689yet people give McCartney a pass for the same kind of vapid music they'll run other artists through the wringer for
>>129405832Maybe a better comparison with sham-country would be sham (typically blue-eyed) soul. For instance, Boz Scaggs for a while was as inescapable as the Eagles. Other big soulful names who I find quite obnoxious include Van Morrison (at least from about '71 onwards) and Hall & Oates. It might be argued that someone like Barry White was even more offensive, but at least he had the sense to camp it up to the max and thus came off as less pretentious.
most find it incredibly ironic that Don Henley shit on lawyers in Dirty Laundry yet is obsessed with suing people
first off it has a lot to do with how the Eagles were as much of a boardroom creation as Bread or Linkin Park>Dave Geffen and Irv Azoff meet and discuss how they can create the perfect AM and FM hit machine>their songs extensively used outside help like JD Souther, Jackson Browne etc, basically every hotshot in the California rock scene at the time>Henley and Frey were turbo douches nobody liked>when they needed hits they also hired talent like Joe Walsh and Tim Schmitt along the lines of the Yankees paying big bucks for a pitcher>the albums were very well-played and put together but with that level of outside talent helping them it was hard not to be>lots of bands struggled to have enough material to fill out one LP yet the Eagles have multiple entire albums of professionally crafted and radio-ready songs
>>129404993It was a genius idea though.
>>129406002>Dave Geffen and Irv Azoff meet and discuss how they can create the perfect AM and FM hit machinealso cf. Wikipedia early life section on these guys. 'nuff said.
as a kid i loved a lot of classic rock but the Eagles always filtered me, they never had a song i cared to sit all the way through. they really feel like the turning point where rock stopped being an organic form of expression and became focus grouped product.
>>129406002The Buttles, Zimmerman, and Pedo Zeppelin were boardroom creations too, anon.
They are/were hyper competent and sleek. They made music the way one would solve a math problem. Any sense of excitement came from reverse engineering more authentic bands or musicians.
Women loved the Eagles, boomers have assured me that they got one laid like no other band. Then again that proves how ersatz they were because if women dig something, how authentic can it be?
>>129406002heard the one about how they were in Europe and Frey sent a roadie out to buy his favorite brand of cigarettes which were not readily available over there, the roadie found some, and then Frey flipped out because they weren't in his preferred type of packaging. 'nuff said.
>>129405188the real reason Bernie left the band is like JC leaving Styx; he was a moralfag and didn't like the decadent rock star lifestyle
they have all the worst traits of 70s rock. Meaningless drivel from egomaniacs. They took all the excellent country rock pioneered by Gram Parsons and co and dumbed it down to a cass caricature.
>>129406259I wasn't around in the 60s so have the space and distance to see that the Beatles and Dylan are vastly overrated. The Eagles wrote some of the best songs of the 70s, a claim the Beatles can never truly have about the 60s. Also Henley and Frey had actually viable solo careers when you contrast the utter trash the Beatles members did solo.
also fuck Glenn Frey's son for "replacing" him in their live performances. dude's as bad as Wolfgang Van Halen. i have no problem with a musician's kid forging their own path in music like Arlo Guthrie, Terry Melcher, Hank Williams Jr., or Roseanne Cash. But Deacon Frey, Wolfgang Van Halen, and Eddie Money's kids have some major nerve and do nothing but lunch off their parent's legacy.
my old man saw the Eagles in Glasgow in '77. fucking waste of time and money that show was. playing all the songs like the albums note for note, no interaction with the crowd at all. rubbish, man.
>>129405493>U2 would seem to suffer from a similar fate.they dont have the blues, but they do have KFC
>>129405493Then again lots of successful bands had no blues base, so...meh.>>129405689Even in the very well-made Eagles docu Henley and Frey are so insufferable it hurts.
>>129405695>Henley has one of the best "asshole" voices in popular music, that nigga got smugness pumping out of every poreoh i see you saw Cuckgau's HC review too
