Don't Fear the Reaper vs. Hotel California

You know this will be the most one-sided poll ever, right?

there will be no earnest votes for Hotel California. zero.

great thread

earnest vote for HC right here

you won't be the only one, so long as voters refuse to be intimidated.

both songs irredeemable garbage

Q: You sing: "So I called up the captain / 'Please bring me my wine' / He said, 'We haven't had that spirit here since 1969.'" I realize I'm probably not the first to bring this to your attention, but wine isn't a spirit. Wine is fermented; spirits are distilled. Do you regret that lyric?”
Henley: Thanks for the tutorial and, no, you're not the first to bring this to my attention-—and you're not the first to completely misinterpret the lyric and miss the metaphor. Believe me, I've consumed enough alcoholic beverages in my time to know how they are made and what the proper nomenclature is. But that line in the song has little or nothing to do with alcoholic beverages. It's a sociopolitical statement."

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

hey you know how "don't fear the reaper" has that part where everything dissolves into quiet and then suddenly the guitar solo storms in like someone's building a creepy winding staircase in real time

fuck the eagles

On a visit back to my parents' house about a month ago, I was heartened to find that the BOC logo the neighborhood burnouts had etched in fresh cement in 1979 was still visible.

No one would ever etch an Eagles logo into anything.

Eagles logo is a hard etch:

http://www.fastdecals.com/shop/images/detailed/2/product_detailed_image_31001_1084.jpg

seems like a cool logo for someone to etch onto their body richey edwards style

Hotel California = "Come on, get to the good part already."
Reaper = ALL GOOD PART

I kinda want someone to re-cut the opening credits to the miniseries of Stephen King's "The Stand" using "Hotel California" instead of "Reaper" to see how shite it would be.

you people had your chance to post last fall

Jeff Lebowski otm.

potato head blues is one of the best recordings of the 20th century and it wouldn't fit that sequence well either. doesn't seem like a good criterion phil

smash the eagles and burn their fucking hotel to the ground

boc forever, peace out

Is Don't Fear the Reaper actually about suicide?

Came the last night of sadness
And it was clear she couldn't go on
The door was open and the wind appeared
The candles blew and then disappeared
The curtains flew then he appeared
Saying don't be afraid

So no then?

it's at the very least strongly flirting with suicide idealization. "romeo and juliet are together in eternity / we can be like they are".

some plausible deniability is built in for sure, both to evade concerned parents' groups and for poetic ambiguity.

Iunno "Be like they are", not "do what they did". A lot of room for maneuver between not fearing death and suicide love pact ime.

tru. i think the possibility of the pro-suicide reading is what allows it to be haunting through. like romeo & juliet...

by the way, looking through these lyrics again i am noticing that they scan very well

fuck the eagles

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Saturday, September 20, 2014 2:44 PM

same

I did an art project in ninth grade where I listened to Hotel California on repeat for three class periods and drew whatever images came to mind that weren't literally connected to the lyrics.

do these drawings still exist?

really hope the answer is yes

Likely as not they opened a portal to hell that sucked the entire school in.

You can show up for homeroom anytime you like, but you can never leave.

what a spoooooooooky scenario

unfortunately soref the pictures are gone and i only vaguely remember what they were like. something about a cars driving inside a building. lots of dark red.

always read Reaper as consolation for a friend with a terminal illness

CLASSIC ROCK TRACKS POLL: THE RESULTS

1. Blue Oyster Cult – Don’t Fear The Reaper 3107 points, 41 votes, 2 first place votes
143. The Eagles – Hotel California 699 points, 10 votes, 1 first place vote

Buck Dharma has commented somewhere about Reaper not being as simple as a paean to suicide.

I hate the eagles but I can't deny that taken in a vacuum Hotel California is a good song. Harmonized guitar solo is legit awesome. I can enjoy this and the last resort off the same record.

BOC by a mile obv

there will be no earnest votes for Hotel California. zero.

― Now I Am Become Dracula (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Saturday, 20 September 2014 17:12 (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

na

1. Blue Oyster Cult – Don’t Fear The Reaper 3107 points, 41 votes, 2 first place votes
143. The Eagles – Hotel California 699 points, 10 votes, 1 first place vote

Was gonna say...we pretty much settled this a few weeks ago.

the league ain't the cup

Nice piece on the production of reaper and the tricks involved. Lol at the insane way they got the snare sound:

http://www.mixonline.com/recording/tracking/blue-oyster-cults-dont-fear-reaper/

I hate the eagles but I can't deny that taken in a vacuum Hotel California is a good song. Harmonized guitar solo is legit awesome. I can enjoy this and the last resort off the same record.

yes i agree. i do not care at all about the eagles but hotel california can stand alone.

Yeah, that's true enough. Thanks for the link, Jon L. Just listened to the demo version as a result.

with treesh on this. HC is a truly evocative, transportative piece of music, but I don't roll with any other Eagles I've heard. maybe it was young exposure that did this

Nice to find out the solo is on an SG. Not sure if that was buck's go to gtr at the time.

Treeship there are a few more unimpeachable eagles joints... I can't tell you why, one of these nights, in the city, journey of the sorcerer

LJ go listen to journey of the sorcerer it is up your street

i'm not a huge Eagles guy but there are definitely at least 7 or 8 hits i'd rather hear on the radio than "Hotel California." now and then i can leave it on and enjoy it, but it's just so long and overplayed.

I want to do like a 12 hour interview with buck dharma. And another one with sandy pearlman. I've said this before on here.

Oh shit I've heard this before. Not all 6 minutes but cmon a childhood fan of kooky British comedy not knowing this...impossible

It's fucking awesome obv

SG is the guitar I immediately associate with Dharma, largely because of the "Tyranny & Mutation" inner sleeve

http://p2.storage.canalblog.com/23/72/636073/70557393.jpg

sorry didn't think it was that big

You can check out (BOC) any time you like,
but you can never leave (the eagles)

At least that's what they taught us in Sunday School(1983).

Thx myonga. Admittedly the sg is one of the classic guitars I can't really recognize by ear. These days buck plays some weird expensive looking boutique thing live.

Both good songs, have never bothered with the lyrics of either, main riff of "Reaper" is awesome, also like the vocals, voted "Reaper".

Yeah, ftr, I do like the guitar solo in "Hotel California" quite a bit, and don't mind the whole HC album. "Reaper" is one of my all-time favourite rock songs, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOSalcHVXnU

Hotel California would be good if it skipped straight from the intro to the outro, no vox necessary

Or just move the outro to the start, and after that you can check out any time you like

Actually, the kitschy Gipsy Kings version does it justice just fine, imo.

you can't take don henley out of the song -- he's the one singing it
i don't care how good the music is when don henley is straining to sing 'bippity bup at the hotel california'
reaper or bust

I have an app that can take Don Henley out of anything.

Hotel California would be good if it skipped straight from the intro to the outro, no vox necessary

― Merdeyeux, Monday, September 22, 2014 1:16 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it was composed by "fingers" felder as an instrumental demo, would be kind of cool if they released that... but i suppose it would be bad to let the audience behind the curtain of EEGLES MAJIK

today's quest is to find a download of the MFSL of agents of fortune. I can't say I love the way it sounds on the remastered cd or the original cd. It sounds like it SHOULD sound great but it doesn't somehow.

also I am listening to albert bouchard's new solo album right now. First song was awesome, second song not awesome.

'bippity bup at the hotel california'

TYVM for this LL

that's all-time.

http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view3/1823248/bippity-boppity-boo-o.gif
Bippity Bup at the Hotel California...

Shit. Much like "Hotel California" itself, that gif was way longer than it needed to be to get the point across.

Hotel California makes me want to claw my eyeballs out and Don't Fear the Reaper is perfect this is the worst poll ever.

As a vegetarian these are two of my most favorite foods. Oh. So hard!!
― Benson and the Jets (ENBB), Monday, September 22, 2014 2:17 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Jalepeno cilantro hummus? That seems like a compromise but still. I hate this poll.
― Benson and the Jets (ENBB), Monday, September 22, 2014 2:17 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you hate all the polls tho

also omg at the BTS reaper vid i need to steal that thank you in advance

Yes but for different reasons, duh.

It's weird. They say if you look closely at that mezzanine, you can see the shadow of The Reaper watching over the crowd.

http://i.imgur.com/og6ZKrY.jpg

DON: To be honest, we were so busy with our own work that we sort of missed Blue Oyster Cult. But when "Reaper..." hit the radio, everyone--which included us--had to take notice. A spooky, evil-sounding song with Pop power that still managed to rock out? We'd mined similar territory with "One of These Nights", but the ante had been raised and we had work to do.

GLENN: So we got monstered to a Godzilla level and that's how "Teenage Jail" was born.

DON: Well, yeah.

Lolol

Actually I could almost see disco strangler as a Spectres outtake

treeship, just out of curiosity what is your age?

I have an app that can take Don Henley out of anything

Or you could just dance to forget

Also "bippity-bup" is the best thing ever LL

4-5 year old me feels so vindicated right now.

smash the eagles and burn their fucking hotel to the ground

i bet any band in the world could set this line to music and it would still be better than 'hotel california.'

'hotel california' is one of the most boring songs on classic rock radio, 'reaper' makes me wish it was twice as long as it is.

hey i also heard 'smuggler's blues' by glenn frey for the first time the other night when i watched that episode of 'miami vice'. the episode wasn't great. the song was awful, like a muppet fronting a blues band on a wednesday night in a palatine bowling alley bar.

treeship, just out of curiosity what is your age?

― cross over the mushroom circle (La Lechera), Monday, September 22, 2014 4:30 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

25

I have always hated Hotel California.

Conversely, I have always loved Don't Fear the Reaper. Just heard it the other day on a Six Feet Under episode when Nate drives off on a motorcycle after a rather depressing funeral.

I know I've posted this before, but I think it bears repeating. Joe Walsh told this story on a Chicago radio show in the late 80s.

Walsh and Felder were in the control room listening to the playback of the HC solos. Henley walked in, listened for a bit and said, "What the fuck is this? This sounds like shit! Do those solos over!" and stalked out. Walsh and Felder smirked at each other like, "Ugh, so sick of that fucking guy." An hour later Henley returned, high off his ass, demanding to hear the new solos. They played the tape, Henley listened and said, "See, now that's MUCH better. Thanks, guys!" Walsh and Felder hadn't re-recorded a note. Henley was hearing the exact same solos he'd heard an hour earlier (and which wound up on the record).

Felder tells that much differently (and I'll take Felder's word over Walsh's any day of the week, heh):

"Uh-huh. That was there, and all the way down to most of the guitar parts on the ending. In fact, when we were doing the guitar parts at Criteria Studios in Miami, I thought that Joe and I would just plug in our guitars – I'd play some licks and he'd play some licks, and we'd just trade off each other. When I wrote the ending, I recorded my guitar parts on a Les Paul and I played Joe's answers on a Strat. I used a different amp so it sounded like a different guy, the way Joe might play it, and then I'd pick up my guitar to do the answer to that – so I emulated what the whole idea would be.

"When we were in the studio, Joe and I started jamming, and Don said, 'No, no, stop! It's not right.' I said, 'What do you mean it's not right?' And he said, 'No, no, you've got to play it just like the demo.' Only problem was, I did that demo a year earlier; I couldn't even remember what was on it. So we had to call my housekeeper in Malibu, who took the cassette, put it in a blaster and played it with the phone held up to the blaster. We recorded it, and I had to sit in Miami and play exactly what was on the demo. Joe had to listen to the way I had emulated him, and he played something very close to that. It was close enough to the demo to make Don happy."

From this (worth reading imho): http://www.musicradar.com/us/news/guitars/interview-don-felder-on-the-eagles-classic-song-hotel-california-557397

"We haven't had that spirit here since 1969" vs "Pink champagne on ice"

I guess she knew someone in the kitchen

i was just wondering about your age because if you were in 9th gr, that would be...2003?

I did an art project in ninth grade where I listened to Hotel California on repeat for three class periods and drew whatever images came to mind that weren't literally connected to the lyrics. (We were able to pick the song we used.)

why did you choose "hotel california" at that age (and in that year)?! what did the other students choose?

rock 'n' roll never forgets

Felder tells that much differently (and I'll take Felder's word over Walsh's any day of the week, heh):

Yeah, I would too, particularly as Walsh was pre-sobriety when he told the story (and his speech was so slurred, it sounded like he'd had a stroke).

xp LL

it was just a song that i had always been aware of and wondered about. i didn't know what the hotel was supposed to be: a haunted hotel? a brothel? a cult? the ambiguity was engrossing. i also didn't really know much about the eagles and what rock critics thought of them... maybe i knew their lead singer was named don henley, but it's unlikely.

i don't remember what the other kids chose. i have a dim memory of "hair pie" by capatain beefheart being chosen by this especially cultured student but i am not sure how possible that is.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

didn't vote but i would've put an earnest vote for hotel california. i'm no eagles fan but there is something intriguing about the song. i think there is some thread like "what exactly is going on in hotel california" that breaks it down musically and it's a really good ILM thread!

don't fear the reaper doesn't do much for me imo. i didn't even really know the song, i had to look it up. didn't realize blue oyster cult was even a 70s band, for some reason i thought they were some bunch of jerkoffs like primus or something. oh shit that's because of oysterhead! man that band sucked

the only thread that counts: A Good Day In Hell - The Official ILM Track-By-Track EAGLES Listening Thread

no it's not that one, let me find it.

and just what the hell is going on in "Hotel California"?

You gotta endure Howard 'n' Robin but here's Don Felder discussing the composition of HC:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Jc8cPStgRQ

didn't know Don Felder was a full partner, unlike poor slaves Schmitt and Walsh, hence the lawsuit.

accurate results

hey the data don't lie

Yeah, legally Felder had a leg to stand on. He was part of eagles inc.

I liked hearing (dimly in the background) felder's reggae rhythm box instrumental demo for HC in the eagles doc. Is there a leak/boot of it anywhere?

BOC forever btw