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

to me this sounds like early dylan in the full chords and shameless changes. there was a latent complacency & sexism in that folk/hippie scene that i always hear ringing in that stuff, readymade for crossover into this countrified americana. the retreat from the political into the personal that you hear talked of re: '70s Laurel Canyon scene etc. wasn't such a big one.

Anyone see the BBC doc "Hotel California: From the Byrds to the Eagles?" I've heard good things.

"Tryin'"

http://randymeisneronline.com/images/poco.jpg

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

a little sub-Poco filler to close out the album. seems appropriate. we just have one non-album b-side to go and we will close the book on this album. so close!

a little palate cleanser:

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

damn i've already forgotten my own rule about links and embeds. need more coffee...

More boilerplate. Again the intro is good, and the growly lower register that the guitars deploy suits them. I like the lead guitar, though it's completely standard; but the tame backing in the verses/solo spoils it. The bridge/chorus is much better. The breakdown and outro are boring, as are the vocals. They should just ditch any attempts at prettiness, or at least deploy them only occasionally for effect - it's not too bad when the harmonies appear one-word-per-verse, but the coda is rubbish. And for once the drumming's only wussy.

Overall the album scores a (4). Bitchin' one-two, thereafter mostly filler; but there are one or two good songs, and it always sounds nice. With a bit more confidence and more rigorous quality control I can see them putting out a much better second album. Otherwise wait for the Greatest Hits.

The guitar at the beginning, and the high vocals in the first line, reminded me of Rush's "Fly By Night."

Not a horrible song; if I heard it on the radio my reaction would be "That's the Eagles?" But I wouldn't be itching to hear it again.

I mentioned the Eagles to my guitar teacher yesterday, and he went into a total rage, relating what it was like to be stuck in the back of the family car on a road trip, with no option other than AM radio, and hearing the same Eagles songs, over and over again, hour after hour. There was practically spit flying from his mouth.

Nothing but good things to say about their musicianship and harmonies, though.

this defines "innocuous"

Tryin' sucks.

The message of the eagles s/t is that they need to get more negative ASAP. Their inner assholes are struggling to get out and this cap'n easytimes thing is stifling them.

This song makes me realize that this is going to be a very long thread.

it's a strong one!

btw every time I click on this thread and see the photo of Glenn Frey rocked by laughter I want to strangle babies

The Eagles as babies, presumably.

"Eagles Babies" with Linda Ronstadt as Nanny.

no hyperbole, i think i could make a mix of 500 similar songs from that era that are all better than "tryin'". eagles are definitely testing my faculties. uh....the guitars sound fine...???

i do like the little echo blasts of multi-tracking on some words. "get back...!"

FREY: Listen, Randy. You're going to get out there and do "Take It to the Limit" and you're going to hit all the high notes! We're Eagles, man.

MEISNER: But I'm sick! I can't do it every night! I miss my family!

FREY: OK, then if no "Limit", we're going to do "Tryin'" instead.

MEISNER: [CRIES] Get Schmidt to do it!

"In 2003, the album was ranked number 374 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time."

they need to listen to some more records over there at RS.

2003 though, there had only been about 510 albums released at that point

and Jann presumably has other things to do besides listen to 510 albums

btw every time I click on this thread and see the photo of Glenn Frey rocked by laughter I want to strangle babies

He's laughing at you. He's laughing at all of you.

I drove to work listening to the whole first album, and even though we discovered that a good majority of the songs are kinda sucky to some degree or another, as an album it really almost is the definition of easy listening. Don't crank it, just keep it down kinda mid-range or low, you can still think about whatever you want bcz it's not going to demand a whole lot of attention from you, and there's a nice innocuous groove for most of it. Which is not a thing I ever really want from music very often unless I've got a headache but, well there you go.

Does RS giving it a nod have more to do with it just being the *first* album and Witchay Woman and the bitchin album art? Someone shoudl find out if they actually listened to Chug.

Oh and re: Tryin?

"Hi we're Sucky Boston and we are gonna rock you tonight"

this rivals Chug for the worst song on the album imo. Randy's strangled vocals and general caterwauling and lame attempts to 'rock out' it's just all embarrassing

my two big probs with it are 1) the total lack of coherence--too many songwriters, singers, styles, etc. and it doesn't really come together, and 2) a couple of songs that had some potential just feel incomplete and rushed.

this reminds me sonically and vocally of Chris Bell-era Big Star. except it's way more boring.

it's v boring

on't crank it, just keep it down kinda mid-range or low, you can still think about whatever you want bcz it's not going to demand a whole lot of attention from you,

Don Henley sex advice

lol otm

I'm gonna bore you in the night until your skin turns red.

loool

7 women on my mind, four that wanna to bore me, two that wanna bone me, one says she's a friend of mine

yeah the first 30 seconds reminded me of Big Star

what's with all the intros on this album being better than the song?

man, these guys were lucky they got Take it Easy and Peaceful Easy Feeling handed to them or they could have been just another forgotten dollar bin 70s band

they got those songs and still almost pissed it way--desperado didn't exactly light up the charts.

v true re big star. a better lead guitarist would help. wonder what they'd sound like with someone like, say, joe walsh.

if he joined now though we'd be robbed of some awesome james gang which shits all over every eagles song

otm

I still think about what a bunch of idiots they are, that by the time they had Felder and Walsh, they made one good album and then a kind of meh album (and then whatever the rest was which uggggh). to me it's just, you guys should have been KILLING it with like 2 or 3 albums in a row of facemelting guitar radness

idk

then again with Herr Frey and Herr Henley, it's hard to see how it could have gone any other way

anyway i'm getting ahead of myself

if he joined now though we'd be robbed of some awesome james gang which shits all over every eagles song

I don't know about that robbing us of some James Gang stuff--Thirds was also in '71, and he just had the live album to go. If anything, we may have lost his early solo stuff--or "Rocky Mountain Way" would have appeared in On The Border!

But anyway, "Tryin'": Kind of a limp Stones thing. I like the opening riffs some, and the rhythm guitar during the solo. That's it.

the thing that best describes this song, and possibly this album is that thing Billy Crystal does in When Harry Met Sally with the sad-dude-overbite dance

http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_losovterVJ1qf7r5lo1_500.gif

ha!

This is how I imagine anyone dances to the Eagles.

Final analysis on Eagles, btw, since I didn't really play along: I like the three singles (always did), most of the album tracks are passable, and only "Take the Devil" truly sucks.

btw every time I click on this thread and see the photo of Glenn Frey rocked by laughter I want to strangle babies
He's laughing at you. He's laughing at all of you.

I too see them laughing at us for our grand endeavor.

Perhaps we've inspired him to go over to Henley's and say, "Man, we've just got to do "Chug II!""

i was stuck at a light behind a car w/ an 'I <3 my Chug' bumper sticker and 'Take It Easy' came on the radio scan, i thought of this thread.

also learned that a Chug is the saddest dog hybreed of all

What's that, chihuahua pug??? No way, when I was a kid we had a part pug/part chihuahua and she was the cutest best dog. Her name was Susanna.

woah saki

that's crazy