207. Eagles, "Eagles"

 


I knew this day would come and I would have to do it.  I have tried to prepare myself emotionally, spiritually, and physically.  I tried picturing myself as a 72-year-old man who hasn't listened to anything released after 1979 and who calls P.F. Changs "ethnic food."  I tried watching only reruns of Mannix and Hart to Hart for a month.  Nothing worked.

I still had to choke down an entire Eagles album.  There was no getting around it.

Here's the good news: I can't really say I hated it because it's too bland and inoffensive to hate.  It's like hating soda water.  OK, fine, but what's the point.  The bad news?  What isn't boring is mostly terrible, more on which below.

(One thing I found really odd, as a sidenote - typically albums by white legacy rock bands have fallen on the Rolling Stone list as it's grown more inclusive and circumspect, but, against all odds, this album climbed from number 368 in the 2012 edition to 207 now.  Did the album get better?  No it did not.  Who knows.)

Let's get the jukebox/FM radio staples out of the way quickly:  "Peaceful Easy Feeling" and "Take It Easy" are two of the most aptly-named songs ever, utterly placid songs suitable for someone to learn how to play basic guitar chords to.  "Witchy Woman" is another one everybody knows, and is just as limp and lifeless as the rest.

Some of it is bad.  There's a ballad called "Most of Us Are Sad" that shows off the harmonies that were the band's calling card but with a melody so forgettable and weak they're all wasted.  "Train Leaves Here This Morning" isn't as bad as "Sad," maybe because it was written with Gene Clark, who knew his way around a song.  "Earlybird" is tough to listen to, not gonna lie, witrh its frantic bird sounds and its dumb as shit lyrics:

You know I like to lay in bed
And sleep out in the sun
Reading books and playing crazy music
Just for fun
You know it makes me feel so fine
And puts my mind at ease to
Know that I don't harm a soul
In doing what I please

Yeesh.  Among this mostly dreck, there is one song I did actually kinda like, the album closer "Tryin'," a Randy Meisner number with a nice fuzzed up lead guitar.  The song's not very interesting, but at least it feels sort of marginally alive and not as stoned as the people playing it.  

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? I guess just based on sales/number of plays on HOT 95.9 or whatever, but I wish it weren't.

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