The Eagles: Love 'Em Or Hate 'Em? New Hit Album, On Cover of Rolling Stone

The Eagles: Love 'Em Or Hate 'Em?

Here's Why I Bring This Up Now:

1) They have New Hit Album, their first record in more than 25 years, which has sold almost 4 million copies via an exclusive deal with Wal Mart, at a time when record sales are down 25 to 30 percent from 5 years ago....

2) They're on the cover of Rolling Stone this month....

3) The RS story is a fawning, slobbering yank job by Charles M Young, who, 25 years ago, was writing enthusiastically about punks like Wendy O Williams, the Dead Boys and the Buzzcocks and would have pummeled a lightweight band like the Eagles.

I was stunned that the story was six pages of shameless hero worship, entirely devoid of any critical perspective.

And that he quoted Billy Joel, another purveyor of superficial, simplistic pop, as describing them as "The American Beatles." I think I threw up a little bit in my mouth when I read that.

4) And they're getting ready to go out on what will likely be the most popular tour of the last five years.

Me, I hated em. Except for maybe 5 songs, and all from their first couple of albums -- "James Dean," "Midnight Flyer," "Take It Easy," "Already Gone" and "Desperado," when they had a more organic, country-rock quality to their sound.

Then Bernie Leadon, their country-rock conscience, left the band after the 2nd album, and I found most of their music from then on to be alternately saccherine, sappy, lightweight, antiseptic, shallow and annoying. That was partly because of Don Henley's voice, which I found to be a mewling, simpering, grating instrument that was like nails on a chalkboard

And also because, well, he thought he was engaging in biting social commentary when in fact, he sounded more to me like he was just perpetrating shallow, cynical cliches. Not only that, but their lyrics were among the most misogynistic in pop music.

I know that mine might be a minority perspective, but one that probably won't surprise those of you who have read my music posts and know that my faves are artists who make music that I think is grittier, more soulful, more substantive, bluesier and / or more organic...

That is, artists like Dylan, The Band, the Dead, Lucinda Williams, Randy Newman, Steve Earle, The Who, the Beatles, Richard Thompson, Tom Waits, Neil Young, The Clash, Patti Smith, Springsteen, John Prine, Al Green, Otis Redding, Roxy Music, Steely Dan, etc

But since the Eagles are one of the most popular bands of all time, and they are now saturating the media again, with a new hit album and tour, I thought this might be a good discussion topic:

The Eagles: Love 'em or hate 'em? And why?

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Edited by WeHappyFew at 05/25/2008 5:47 PM PDT