From ‘Witchy Woman’ to ‘Tryin”, the songs show the band playing as if everything, including their souls, depended on the finished results. Such is the way of the game, the album proved the band’s template from which they could either honour or reject.And the band would continue to furnish their career, to varying degrees of success, but their first album is the work people tend to associate the band with. The songs were written as if ready to be performed onstage, and it’s virtually a live album in all but name. There’s the punchy ‘Take It Easy’, all guitar hooks and desert emblems, coming together as one feistily produced whole. The music was gripping,and the vocalists- particularly Glenn Frey – showcase a liveliness they would struggle to re-capture on future albums. The greatest American album recorded in England? No matter that the album was mostly recorded and completed in London, the band were writing about their lives across the Irish sea, demonstrating a camaraderie with the world at large.

‘Lyin’ Eyes’ is a bit of a misfire, but ‘After the Thrill is Gone’ holds great resonance, as does ‘Hollywood Waltz’, showing the band’s adherence to stranger, more complicated forms of music. The songs showed an emotional spark that cemented the album, creating a new type of spark and sincerity. ‘One Of These Nights’ is the undisputed highlight, but there’s a great deal of contrast heard throughout the album, flitting from rollicking guitar-heavy fodder, to more cerebral, waltz-like material. It’s certainly the band’s most inventive affair, deviating between genres within a matter of seconds of one another. If I ever had to pick one, it wouldn’t be ‘Hotel California’ it wouldn’t be ‘Take It Easy.’ For me, it would be ‘One Of These Nights.'” He’s right to single out the tune, given its complexity, shadings and differences in tone and texture. “We made a quantum leap with ‘One Of These Nights.’It was a breakthrough song. “We had Don Henley’s voice, which allowed us to go in a more soulful direction, which made me exceedingly happy,” Frey recalled. The album features Glenn Frey’s favourite Eagles track. The deliciously perverse ‘The Disco Strangler’ carries a warning to the temporary fads that were entertaining listeners on a momentary basis. The band were growing detached from their roots, which explains why ‘In The City’ and ‘I Can’t Tell You Why’ carry a commitment to the change in tone that the music industry was undergoing. Even something as docile as ‘Heartache Tonight’ betrays a sense of anger at the world at large.Īnger regularly translates into terrific art, see Plastic Ono Band, but it didn’t necessarily suit Eagles, whose best work recalled the shimmering tales of America past. It might be the band’s darkest work, replacing levity with a lingering sense of despair. The band decided to channel this sense of displacement on their sixth album, the band’s last before they broke up in 1980. Considering the lyrics, “Who is gonna make it/ We’ll find out in the long run,” the band were undergoing great change at this juncture in their personal lives. The title track was written by drummer Don Henley as a response to the critics who thought the band were past in the wake of disco and punk and reflects the entire record. Tellingly, the best of the originals is ‘I Dreamed There Was No War’, an incendiary instrumental dizzying hooks and angular melodies. But the original songs lack the bite of the band’s earlier output, particularly through its lyrics. The album features a high number of covers, of which Paul Carrack’s ‘I Don’t Want to Hear Any More’ is the most impactful, while J.D.Souther’s ‘How Long’ features one of Henley’s more scintillating falsettos. The songs feature a collection of dense, deeply put together rockers that stands as a midway point between the sparkily produced pastoral rock numbers of the past, with the slicker, more energised rock outlet of the millennium. Nothing within the album sounds as rich as their first two records, and although the production techniques paper some of the cracks, there’s no denying that the lyrics fail to hold up on repeat listens. So, it’s no surprise that the only disappointing album in their career was recorded decades after the one they seamlessly conquered. The Eagles were the quintessential 1970s rock band, so it was right for them to call time on their career when the decade ended. Ranking The Eagles albums from worst to best 7. But they did have six strong albums that have stood up with the best of the decade. And neither could they, seeing what ultimately resulted in the risible Long Road Out of Eden. Where they were strong was from their roots to the decade in question, and the band boasted a certain flavour none of their imitators could replicate.

Eagles long road out of eden