A Good Day In Hell - The Official ILM Track-By-Track EAGLES Listening Thread

"70s production was so flumpfy and dead."

yeah this brush is too broad. so much to love about the sound of so many 70's records. i wouldn't even know where to begin. but i get the gist of the dead airless argument.

this is their best to date but still an airless recording. I can imagine being sixteen, gay, driving around a dead-end town while this plays on the radio though..

Granted, re: broad brush. There are some dead-arse 70s recordings I love (Parliament, Steely Dan), but applying those principles of sound to everything meant that no (or hardly any) studios existed where one could make a record that had some resonance. And stuff like Anthony Braxton's Arista records really suffer from this.

after the gold rush is super "dead" sounding and that works great

I always found this superlame but that was mostly the lyric - new kids in town always seemed like the most pathetic boast to write about. I can't quite shake that off, but there's no denying the craft here. The whole extended end section - 'coda' doesn't quite seem enough - is exquisite.

I doubt they intended this, but the second verse sounds like a tour of Mediterranean resorts - there's a Greek feel for a line, then an italo piano bar bit, then they sound like they might be about to launch into a Spanish chanson, then the piano bar again. If Moroder had spent his youth pleasing tourists in Rhodes and Rimini, rather than in Tirolean discotheques, then Giorgio By Moroder might've come out like this.

This song has always bored me, and it still does.

If Springsteen wanted reverb in the '70s, he should have travelled west and recorded at Gold Star or the Capitol Tower (if they'd let him in). Best echo chambers that ever were.

Best part of this song: That devil guitar riff that lifts its head up around 3:20 after "Where you been lately?"

Also, again, Randy's got nothing to be ashamed of.

Throw him a bone! (sorry)

This is another one of my favorites. Frey gives a perfect, naive vocal for the song, inhabiting it in way Henley could never fully commit. The nearly subliminal latin elements are a nice unexpected touch (have the Mavericks ever tried this song for their own?), and sort of a hallmark for Souther at that time. Henley, in a franker mood than when quoted below, has said that the track more or less a Souther solo comp that he and Frey added a tiny amount to and got credit. Overall this is like the perfect "El Lay" record, and perhaps ironically, the closet they got to being in the Rumours (which came out a month or so after Hotel California) wheelhouse.

The Crowe on this one is kinda boring.

NEW KID IN TOWN
GLENN: We won a Grammy® for Best Vocal Arrangement for “New Kid In Town.” I’m quite proud of that.

DON: J.D. Souther started the song. It’s about the fleeting, fickle nature of love and romance. It’s also about the fleeting nature of fame, especially in the music business. We were already chronicling our own demise [laughs]. We were basically saying, “Look, we know we’re red hot now, but we also know that somebody’s going to come along and replace us — both in music and in love.” We were always doing that double entendre thing, between the music business and personal relationships. But that song was J.D.’s baby — he was the father of that song.

May I submit Bill Janovitz's song review from the amg?

For a while the Eagles could get no respect from rock & roll hipsters; the form of country-rock they practiced was just too smooth and polished when compared to the genre's edgier and more soulful pioneers: the Byrds, Graham Parsons, and the Flying Burrito Brothers. The awful, oxymoronic term "soft rock" was practically invented for the Eagles. But with the focus of the alt-country scene of the late '90s and its hip progeny such as the Scud Mountain Boys, perhaps the Eagles gained a newfound admiration. "New Kid in Town" is just about a perfect pop song. It has all the elements: about five separate melody hooks; impeccable harmonies; well-played parts; a nice Latin-flavored groove; a tension-building bridge that leads into a glorious modulation; and an outro-vamp with overlapping hooks and minor grace chords. In addition to the Eagles' Glenn Frey and Don Henley, it was co-written with J.D. Souther, another songwriter and practitioner of the Southern California sound. If there was such a thing as a Los Angeles sound and recording ethic, the lush but uncomplicated production of "New Kid in Town" embodies it in a single song. And the record on which it first appeared -- the multi-platinum Hotel California(1976), producer: Bill Szymczyk -- is a logical extension of the attention to craft, arrangement, and embrace of technology practiced in the '60s by Phil Spector in his Gold Star studios and the groundbreaking work of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson. OK, well, the lyrics don't really say anything new -- mostly clichés like "there's talk on the street" and "everybody loves you, so don't let them down," and there is still something else missing. Those Wilson compositions, as smooth as they sounded, have a depth (at times cavernous) that the smooth harmonies simply can not gloss over. And the "wall of sound" that Spector was famous for still had an underlying edge and a raw power. Comparatively, "New Kid in Town" is just ear candy.

pplains otm re: devil riff.

i sort of get what the lyrics are trying to say, but i'm not sure they quite say it. i mean, i guess he's the new kid but he isn't always gonna be the new kid, boohoo. it might work better with some kind of story attached, or some kind of detail, or some kind of something, anything, to hold on to.

but musically, this is fantastic songcraft. the two key changes (from E to G and then back to E) are both surprising and both beautifully executed, not at all gratuitous. they threaten a third modulation in the middle of the coda, with the beatle-esque A/Am change at 4:03, but they don't do it; instead they stay in E and launch into a second, better coda ("everybody's talkin' bout the new kid in town/everybody's walkin' like the new kid in town..."). too long? not at all. i wish it went on longer. the tex-mex underpinning that someone pointed out above works really well on the verses.

and it's my favorite frey vocal, by far. he's letting some vulnerability in here, and it really really helps his voice. it's just so musical. is this really his only vocal on the album? that's too bad.

also: they really, really stacked the hits at the top of this album.

(speaking of something, anything, that first key change reminds me of todd rundgren for some reason.)

not really feeling the verses to "New Kid in Town"...reminds me of Jimmy Buffet.

how good would it be if they would have held it off the last album and followed up "Hotel California" with "One of These Nights"?

the beatle-esque A/Am change at 4:03

I love the guitar riff under this change, too.

how good would it be if they would have held it off the last album and followed up "Hotel California" with "One of These Nights"?

I'm feeling this!

will watch the Frey episode of "Miami Vice" called "Smuggler's Blues." Will report.

re "New Kid in Town" he does a bit like Souther.

Nice electric piano by Walsh on this one. I also love the modulation and the third chorus, where Felder steps on the overdrive pedal and transforms the song from AM pop to FM AOR, effectively bridging the pre- and post-Greatest Hits eras of the band. As for the lyrics, who gives a shit? Except maybe on the Long Run, where they finally start to make their cynicism signify, these guys are so much better if you hear them as essentially content-free, which they often are.

I am finally sitting down to listen to this after a long day and initially it sounds like computer generated 70s music. Take a laid back beat, some groovy guitars, some harmonies. some cliches, stir, profit.

The lyrics matter because if you imagine the lyrics to "A Song for You" to this music it sounds like a zillion times better. I don't love this sound enough to choose to listen to it without some emotional investment (even if it's nostalgia or imaginary romance or whatever -- anything but "johnny come lately/the new kid in town") Bleh.

everyone's talking about haim and on this thread or the other eagles thread i mention how much i love the heartache tonight beat and wish people would use it but i don't think i meant in the way that haim use it:

http://youtu.be/1TffpkE2GU4

omg playing hotel california in this bar and plus it was part of a trivia night question!

What year was the spirit last seen in the hotel Cali ?

NINETEEN SIXTY NINE

2004

Everyone got it lol

i smell skunk. there's probably one outside right now.

but 1969 is not an actual year. it's a metaphor. good thing don henley wasn't in the bar or there might've been trouble.

also, I hope the trivia contest prize involved chugging.

you know the only thing that would have made that Crowe question better is if Henley had pitched a fit, screamed THIS INTERVIEW IS OVER, flipped the table and stormed out.

I don't think the spirit question was Crowd. Dude knows his role in this charade.

Crowe...stupid phone.

Everything. All the time.

but 1969 is not an actual year. it's a metaphor. good thing don henley wasn't in the bar or there might've been trouble.

http://www.reactiongifs.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/really_house_of_cards.gif

Henley sued Bryan Adams for metaphor infringement.

Got my first real six-string
On a dark desert highway
Played it 'til my fingers bled
Cool wind in my hair

"Life In The Fast Lane"

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Joe_Walsh_4_-_1975.jpg

http://youtu.be/Fx6qPIC6izM

Hi, Joe!

• Henley does some crazy voices in this song. I THINK even perhaps his "she" voice might be a little patronizing!

• I wish I could play a clip from the "family-oriented" classic rock station I used to work for. They changed "Up and down this highway/haven't seen a goddamn thing" to "haven't seen a schwapgwap thing."

• Always had this scene in my head from when I was a kid of the band playing in the back of a flatbed (reference!) going down the fast lane at dark. And at 2:30 when the second stage of the solo kicks in, why, that's when another flatbed full of guitarists appears and passes the first one.

• Welcome to the band, Joe. I see you've forgotten your banjo.

(listens)

Huh, this riff is pretty cool. Go Joe!

("...nasty reputation as a CREW-ELL dude")

The fuck did he just say?

(turns off radio)

ugh: I hate this one so much. Mainly because of the track's connection with some awful memories from adolescence (it's a song treasured by sociopaths). It's a very American take on decadence: behave like a reckless asshole and go into debt.

I like Walsh's guitars and this is the most active that Henley's kick drum has been in the entire Eagles catalog to date. But I find Henley's vocal just gross, and it's made ten times worse when Frey's whine kicks in during the chorus.

faster, faster

http://flightgfx.com/images/boston-1.jpg

between this and Hotel California = ladies & gentlemen, meet MechaHenley

but damn I love that Joe riff.

this one got me to my class this morning :D

I especially love how, throughout the song, it's this relentless E pentatonic blooz thing, then with that bit at the end, it re-contextualizes the riff with each descending chord change. A bit of detail the song both doesn't need and can't do without.

by the way we're doing Hell Freezes Over new tracks too, right?

Go Joe!

I find sleazy Eagles more persuasive than romantic/mopey/triumphal Eagles

Maybe that's why I've always been less dismissive of their later years.

All those cowboy songs, being a loner and a desperado, doolin' the daltons - it was so fake. You listen to Gram Parsons, that east-coast trust-fund baby, and you can feel way down deep inside that he's coming from the right place. Only with the Eagles could you have white people performing in whiteface.

You can't change who you are, so that's why it's always better to be true to yourself. You take a song like "Life in the Fast Lane" and yup, not too hard to peer into it and see the the soul of the Eagles laid bare. The drugs, the misogyny, the cheesy Americana, the 1970s - if you're looking for a combination of those things, it's hard to beat this band at their own game.

we're doing Hell Freezes Over new tracks too, right?"

we have to: I've been perversely looking forward to when we reach "Get Over It," which may be one of the worst songs in the English language

when i was listening to the desperado stuff i was reading a book of interviews with country people and for some reason the eagles sounded more curdled than ever when i read about brenda lee's family eating grease sandwiches to live and glen campbell's dad making sure his kids had enough squirrel to eat. not that i'm a purist or anything, but the music did come from a very different place and i had forgotten how many people in this country started playing music on a stage because they were hungry! like, really really hungry.

Life on the Fast Lane v Take the Money and Run

*clap clap clap clap clap clap*

I like this one too. Sweet buttrock groove, clever lyrics, funny in a "Chemical dustbins promoting excess abstinence" sort of way. Probably the first time I noticed phasing in a song. And it's finally registering with silly me that the "faster faster" line has more to do with the line before than the one after. Eagle grossness stronger through the years.

Crowebar:

LIFE IN THE FAST LANE
GLENN: This began with a Joe Walsh riff — he had that signature guitar part. I had the title. The true story is: I was riding in a car with a drug dealer — a guy we used to call “The Count,” because his count was never very good [laughs]. We were driving out to an Eagles poker game. I was in the passenger seat. He moved over to the left lane and started driving 75-80 miles per hour. I said, “Hey, man, slow down.” He goes, “Hey, man, it’s life in the fast lane.” And I thought, “Oh, my God, what a title.” I didn’t write it down. I didn’t have to.

Joe started playing a riff at rehearsal one day, and I said, “That’s ‘Life In The Fast Lane.’” So we started writing a song about the couple that had everything and did everything — and lost the meaning of everything. Lifestyles of the rich and miserable. I think the best line is “We’ve been up and down this highway, haven’t seen an God-damn thing.” That pretty much summarized the journey these people were on — rich as hell, gettin’ high, got everything they want, and yet they’re living in a spiritual ghetto. That’s good news to the common man! Rich folks who are absolutely miserable — and most of them are. I really like this record. Plus it made a statement: Joe Walsh was officially in the band.

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090810140929/muppet/images/thumb/4/46/Fp_diecast_count.jpg/273px-Fp_diecast_count.jpg

LIFE IN THE FAST LANE!