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

"Smuggler's Blues"

http://www.dvdactive.com/images/reviews/screenshot/2005/2/miami_vice_s1_3.jpg

http://vimeo.com/58719183

Glenn thinking, "Man, if Henley can write those story song things, so can I!"

His "Miami Vice" acting debut isn't bad btw

forget the chronology: was this done before Glenn's Miami Vice turn, or after?

yeah, in terms of acting Glenn's much more of a natural than Don

this is okay: seems to be in part a rewrite of "Life in the Fast Lane" melodically, in the verses. Glenn's gruff way of singing "SCHMUGlers! Blues!" is kind of endearing

Also taking on Henley's op-ed style and doing it in a less pedantic way.

forget the chronology: was this done before Glenn's Miami Vice turn, or after?

The single "Smuggler's Blues" helped to inspire the Miami Vice episode of the same name, and Frey was invited to star in that episode, which was Frey's acting début. The music video for the single also won Frey an MTV Video Music Award in 1985.

great things about the video:
* Glenn's buddy takes a shot to the chest even though the thugs are firing at them from a distance behind. it's like Warren Commission bullets
* Glenn going in disguise by shaving his stubble
* Glenn's glamorous mule doing a fashion-mag pout in her mugshot
* the sheer glee in the drug dealer's face when he's about to off Glenn

and everyone smoking!

Good example of how to do a 12-bar blues without being all 12-bar blues.

"Smuggler's Blues": FINALLY! To me this is one of the best things in the Frey canon. Damning with faint praise, I know, but this is he and Tempchin stepping out of the box and making it work. A set of nice, tight (and surprisingly dense--six verses before the first chorus, which changes each pass) lyrics, starting out as a narrative before sliding into vivid descriptors. The backing track is just the right mix of slick and tough, a fine example of the largely forgotten "Blue Wave" (New Wave production on Bar Blues--think Huey Lewis, Fab T-Birds, some Dave Edmunds etc.).

The Video: Easily his best narrative effort. Cheesy, yes, but also effective at expanding on the song. One of the only (non-Hip Hop) vids I can think of that ends with the singer being killed at the end. IIRC, the glamour mule became Frey's second wife. So much smoking and gunplay, within ten years it would have been unthinkable that this played on MTV, much less pulled so much awards attention.

Holy Shit, there's an episode of Archer inspired by this?! I'm so behind.

From the user comments...

Jacquie 4 months ago
Put those stupid cigarettes down, ugh. 1985 for sure.

"Let's Go Home"

http://www.beststarsofyear.com/images/glenn-frey-05.jpg

http://youtu.be/_t39pP2z1sQ

or: Glenn doing "Tonight's The Night." Sample lyrics:

"Hurry, finish your drink."
"I need some privacy."

oh: and SOUL pretensions.

^^Foreshadowing

lyric's pure Glenn: he fools around on his wife/gf, then interrupts her venting night out with some friends to blab on and on about how lonely he is.

still, it's well-played, well-recorded (and hell, pretty well sung) Eighties wine-club soul. for what it is, it's good.

In The Wild: "Sunset Grill" at Kroger.

"Let's Go Home": This reminds me of Carole King for some reason. Feels like this would have been a big late-'70s record for George Benson or somebody. Frey acquits himself well, and I'd take this over some of the other relationship songs aired thus far on this set. Surprisingly doesn't feel too long at 5 minutes.

"Better in the USA"

http://www.top40db.net/img/Artist/2222.jpg

http://youtu.be/k7EjD3SIReM

col's fave Frey!

If we're so awful and we're so bad
You oughta check the night life in Leningrad...

"we got the burgers and fries/we got the friendly skies"

makes you wish the studio had burned down when Glenn and the gang were recording this turd

"Better In The USA": God, this makes "Partytown" sound like "The Promised Land". I wrote about this over on the Eagles listening thread, but when I was a little kid I had a monster truck video that had a bunch of regular event footage mixed in with "Music Videos" set to the same. I remember "Manic Mechanic" by ZZ Top and a cover of "Slippin' and Slidin'" by Willie & The Poorboys (a, er, poorman's Honeydrippers w/Paul Rodgers & Bill Wyman) appear alongside this song, which was probably the first Eagles or Eagles-related music I remember hearing.

I think Frey missed the boat by not offering this up to Kraft for a cheese jingle--"It's Cheddar In The USA!"

(sorry, I'll show myself out...)

Looking it up now, Willie & The Poorboys had an interesting back story: http://billwyman.com/audio/willie-and-the-poor-boys/

this is the apex of the "songs for a fifth-rate 80s movie" theme going on in The Allnighter (phone call to Tempchin made after Glenn watches Mary Lou Retton in the '84 Olympics: "hey, Jack, should we do some rah-rah America thing? come on man---party all night in the USA, hot dogs, Beach Boys kinda thing")

...and then Mike Love hears it on the radio and nearly knocks his cap off while smacking his forehead exclaiming "Why didn't I think of this!?"

Holy Shit!

http://tolucantimes.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/T08-Denise-Ames-Mike-Love-Pic.jpg

http://images1.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/When-Worlds-Collide-classic-science-fiction-films-1025298_1600_1200.jpg

It's as though this song was funded by the CIA to specifically appeal to those behind the Iron Curtain who were used to crappy Soviet 50s-rock pastiche.

more solo songwriting credits: "Living in Darkness."

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EMef3KnG5P0/maxresdefault.jpg

http://youtu.be/sN59GHhBGaM

Get a load of Glenn's falsetto and Pointer Sisters backing track.

whoa--this is kind of..good. Pointer Sisters backing track is right, but it even sounds like a poor man's Twilight 22 in places. Was all the programming by Glenn? The bridge--with the "real" horns showing up and Glenn moving out of falsetto---feels like it was shoehorned in from another track. Docked a point for refusing to end for a minute and half.

Was all the programming by Glenn?

sounds like it, right? It has that demo quality.

"Living In Darkness": Woah, where'd this come from? Why didn't we get a whole album of synth jams?* The bridge does feel out of place, but I can hang with the coda. Glenn's falsetto is becoming never not funny. Another track that would sound good in Hot Tub Time Machine II: The Next Day.

*Just noticed that The Allnighter was in stores a good five months before Building The Perfect Beast--Frey actually was the vanguard for a moment.

Man, is there nothing good in store until Don's next album?

Well, yeah. (Although I think we've already had Peak Henley--from what I recall albums 3 & 4 are heavy on the cranky and turgid.)

Eh, End of Innocence is not lacking in quality. Turgid, cranky quality, perhaps, but look who we're dealing with here.

One more!

"New Love"

http://33.media.tumblr.com/3bb478da1e5608f41e2848a0c72fd81f/tumblr_nadn9byGom1slk631o1_500.jpg

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/6160137/glenn_frey_new_love_studio_version_with_lyrics/

the Magnum PI years. are we going straight into the next Glenn, or are you going to switch back to End of the Innocence (I think Glenn's next one is first, chronologically)

End of the Innocence will sound like "Hey Ya."

Anyone surprised by often The Allnighter is merely serviceable instead of dire?

yeah, apart from the 2 body blows of "Better in the USA" and "Sexy Girl," it's a decent, mediocre mid-Eighties album.

"New Love": I like the keyboards. If the Eagles had managed to limp into the mid-80s, this song is exactly how I'd imagine they would sound. Is "Divorced Dad Rock" a thing? This would be a good example of the form: It doesn"t really 'Rock'; lyrics about "starting again"; probably sounds good on the Bose in an '86 Corvette.

As for the album, Alfred OTM "serviceable > dire" pretty much sums it up. Frey is finally getting out of the shadow of the Eagles, and while, true, he does fall flat often, we are hearing a fair amount of risks being taken that wouldn't have been otherwise. I do think it's telling that the standout track here is the one that breaks most with the romantic subjects he was mostly occupying his (and our) time with.

next time he'll be soul searchin'

and getting Harry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eysYg_2ybxk

awwwwwriiiiight back to Don and his second famous solo hit:

"The End of the Innocence"

http://www.overduereview.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Henley.jpg

http://vimeo.com/34856033

ah, Don's "Sarah Lawrence English professor" era, looks-wise.

give him credit: Don had a Bowie-like ability in the '80s to lock in on whatever was hitting and pull his own version off. So here, the genteel late '80s AOR of Bruce Hornsby, recruited to produce & all but play the piano line of "The Way It Is," and its self-pitying, "whatever happened to the Sixties" mood cued perfectly for Reagan's departure, as if commissioned by CNN for a decade retrospective.

and another sexy video but with falling leaves and shit

David Fincher!

also, Wayne Shorter guest star spot ("top this, Sting")

the peak of his flirtation with pop, right? He played on a lot of eighties-era Joni tracks

cast list for this album is insane: Don seemed to have hired anyone on the charts in '87-'88

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_the_Innocence_%28album%29#Personnel

It baffles me that this outsold Building a Perfect Beast.