They Will Not Go Quietly: The Official ILM Track-By-Track DON 'n' GLENN Listening Thread

"Strange Weather": ...and we're back to the Yacht Rock. With two meteorological songs in a row, it sounds like someone was nursing a crush on a weathergirl. The deep bass groove I like, but otherwise this is bland and too long.

Happy Birthday col!

This is very much "You Belong to the City" on Prozac, and then the medication wears off at the chorus.

"Love in the 21st Century"

http://www.glennfreyonline.com/images/SWDesperado30.jpg

http://youtu.be/5ZYPTgF0gGk

The 50-sec instrumental "Aqua Tranquilo" unavailable, alas.

Glenn's future dystopia: video/phone sex lines? virtual reality relationships? it's a bit vague. But he sort of predicts Tinder in an oblique way.

Ghastly as this is, its cheesiness (those horn fills! the phone sex/synth/Marvin Gaye rip!) saves it from being as soul-killing as one of Don's rants. Couldn't make it past 5:00, though

political Glenn!

"He Took Advantage (Blues for Ronald Reagan)"

http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/C9531-10A.jpg

http://youtu.be/uXIeaR20HcY

no doubt Don approved this repentant Glenn.

man, Glenn sounds like he and Reagan had a fling and then R. stopped returning his calls

"sounds"

A year before Billy Joel!

"River of Dreams"

http://youtu.be/6lcq5EuKlFY

http://www.glennfreyonline.com/images/GFreySOSpreview.jpg

Three songs behind...let's do this

"Love In The 21st Century": Copping the "Fortunate Son" riff right out the gate! And then goes nowhere. Yes Glenn, you do look like a desperate man. Seems like this high concept lyric was begging for another one of Glenn's patented narrative videos. Song's way too long.

Should throw this out there

http://ll-media.tmz.com/2014/01/09/010914-tmz-tv-glenn-primary-210x120.jpg

"He Took Advantage (Blues For Ronald Reagan)": Sounds like he had a copy of Afterburner on the Bose at Lefontaine when this was hatched. How tacked-on is the Reagan stuff? This could as easily been a answer to "The Allnighter" as a forecast of Bill Clinton or Spitzer or Edwards or...

"River of Dreams": The link is a live version! And it's a minute shorter than the studio cut (http://youtu.be/QDHoLDrHGdM)? Decisions decisions. Studio: Opening pianner wants to be "Desperado" real bad. Here comes the sax...God, this intro is endless. Wisely cut from the live take. Another Glenn self-help anthem. He confesses he's not "A Modern Man" and owns up to owning a Camaro in the same tone of voice. I bet he felt this was a "Springsteen move" Bland Bland Bland. Oddly, for a guy who loves making him some long codas, this one just kind of...stops.

While I have the floor, remember how in the Eagles doc they reveal that the lads got to together for some exploratory rehearsals in 90-91, and the sole holdout was not Henley (who, riding high on TEoTI, really had no need to be associating with the old gang other than to piss Geffen off, which in retrospect was probably the idea) but Frey, whom I can see ensconced in a high dollar LA studio mixing sax overdubs and thinking to himself, "Who needs those assholes? Eagles schmeagles! Wait'll they get a load of...Strange Weather!" You know that's how it went down too.

alfred, what is that photo? Was Glenn in a pilot for some early '90s Mod Squad revival?

from that show, I think.

South of Sunset, Glenn's one and done private detective show.

"I've Got Mine"

http://s1.ticketm.net/tm/en-au/dbimages/122911a.jpg

http://youtu.be/NZznBNMiZas

wow, Glenn gets slightly subversive, using high yuppie signifiers like synth chimes and a grotesque "Heat Is On" sax in the service of an anti-rich screed. Well, sort of. Main takeaway is: "I make a small donation/what else can I do?"

and it was the single!

Glenn's political stuff goes down a lot smoother than Don's by this point

well, that sax is like swallowing a cat o' nine tails.

Surely it helps that for Glenn "politics" is a means to hit on women at the Hyatt Courtyard bar.

well, yeah

whereas for Don "politics" is a 50-question test with essays, due in an hour.

well, that sax is like swallowing a cat o' nine tails.

LOL. mixed so high that whenever it shows up it's like it's on a bombing run

"I've Got Mine": Another live version! Found the studio cut, Sax isn't quite as loud. Triggered "boom" samples on the bridge Oh So '91. "Moral Malnutrition?" Really dude? Again with how it sucks to be rich thing. Some nice organ licks on the fade. Grooves like a single. Still too long.

"Brave New World"

http://www.nndb.com/people/926/000024854/glennfrey03.jpg

http://youtu.be/Nlcg-4OCkig

lyrically I don't know what's going on here---Glenn's a tenant being driven off his land by some evil landlord? Is he imagining himself as a Native American? I suppose it's all some tortured metaphor for how he and his lady aren't getting along lately. So lots about freedom and holding the line.

padded as all hell---guitar and synth solo, a refrain repeated about eight times, a great bit of Glenn emoting around 4:30 "BRAVE NEW WORLD!! AAAGHAAH!" & then it tries to become a dance track in its last minute

"Brave New World": Is it me, or does seem like Glenn was really leaning on his entertainment library for titles and such on this album? As for this song, he's really hitting on some generic Springsteen circa-Human Touch (which was being recorded around the same time). That closing piano stuff would be at home in a House mix, it's true. He must have heard some one night while eating out at Spago or something.

Glenn's contribution to the foreclosed-farm pop genre.

a Glenn Frey song called...

"Delicious"

http://youtu.be/rQcR_dHWtKU

http://eaglesfans.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83452345769e2010536f3b96a970c-320wi

is he trying to go for a Heavy Nova thing here, just cheaper-sounding? I hope Glenn was hoarse for a week after straining to sing this piece of gunk.

did you get to the part where he praises her "sweet juices runnin' down her fingertips"?

"A Walk in the Dark"

http://www.rockandrollcollection.com/images/eagles/glenn_frey_01.jpg

http://youtu.be/b-4xrmOUSWo

"and if you do, wear armor"

Surrender to the rapture, deep within, no, no, fight it and get the hell out of there, lady

"Delicious": Glenn's trying to keep up with 1986--first the Reagan song bites Afterburner, now this one cops Robert Palmer with a Prince-esque semi-falsetto. Nice backing track that Frey farted on.

"A Walk In The Dark": Henley-esque backing...jeez, this audio encode reeks. Sounds like Glenn also heard some "Wicked Game" while at Spago. Doesn't need to be 5+ minutes long.

Third-world five-star-hotel lounge music.

aka Fifty Shades of Glenn

next: appropriate title...

"Before The Ship Goes Down"

http://www.glennfreyonline.com/images/Ep3ShakalaWins.jpg

https://youtu.be/KofEm6VZbCE

this presages Donald Fagen's last solo album.

yeah, this does have a Fagen feel to it but its dull arrangement & cliche-ridden and gross ("feel my lovin' cup"?) lyric are pure Glenn. There's something unnerving in how fundamentally generic this music is

"Big Life"

http://www.glennfreyonline.com/images/Ep1Split60-40.jpg

https://youtu.be/TtBZyZQExUY

two more tracks? eight more?

this is just fucking awful; is he trying to parody "Big Time" or just figured he'd rip it off for an album track that no one but the engineer and we sad few have ever heard?

Actually, we reviewed "Part of Me, Part of You" last month, so we've finished Strange Weather and this dismal project.

"Ain't it Love"

https://youtu.be/Qjso4bFM3so

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Qjso4bFM3so/hqdefault.jpg

boogie down with Glenny now!

oh, this is kinda sorta mediocre! good enough for a finale.

Takeaways from this thing? '80s Glenn wasn't as awful as I thought and Don even had some bonafide good tracks. But the '90s and 00s were just dismal for these guys. CD bloat (both in track length and number), middle age crankiness, calcified humorlessness; just toxic music.

I'm disappointed Frey wasn't worse.

FWIW, there are a handful of stray 2000-era Henley items (duets and tribute album stuff), and we somehow missed his 90s duet with Trisha Yearwood. But I understand stopping here.

I've really busy as of late, so I'll catch up on the these Glenns later on tonight maybe. Listening to these things really slams the brakes on one's day in a way the Eagles never could quite muster.

In the wild, heard "Sunset Grill" at Corner Bakery, followed soon after by Roxy Music's "Avalon." Hearing the two next to each other made me think that "Sunset Grill" is, sound-wise, like a kind of slightly gaudier American version of the Avalon mellow electronic sound.

Also, thanks to this thread, was reminded of the literal nature of:
These days a man makes you something
And you never see his face
But there is no hiding place
Down at the Sunset Grill

http://i1.wp.com/www.rockandrollgps.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Sunset-Grill-on-Sunset-Boulevard.png

In the wild: "The Last Worthless Evening" in Publix.