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All rights reserved.The Long Run - Eagles (Rock) (The) (CD)
I used to hurry and worry a lot too. Glad I found Maalox.Review created: 01/01/08
by: pyfr-- a member of Epinions and Top Reviewer in Music
Pros:
With four, maybe five songs on the "decent" list, it's better than <i>Hotel California</i>.
With four, maybe five songs on the "decent" list, it's better than <i>Hotel California</i>.
Cons:
Flips on occasion to a really strange, undiscovered form of disco that DOES NOT WORK.
Flips on occasion to a really strange, undiscovered form of disco that DOES NOT WORK.
As the 1980 s cast their shadow across the land, the first phase of The Eagles time together drew to a close. Between Don Henley s ever-expanding Afro and ego, there just wasn t enough room for the other guys on the tour bus anymore. Which is a shame, considering they had finally added their first piece of eye-candy to the lineup, in the form of falsetto-voiced, bass-playing Navajo princess Timothy B. Schmit. Rawr.
Hotel California and the success that followed in its wake had done some funny things to Henley, Frey, Bender, Walsh, and Donnie Boy Felder. They seemed to be leaving behind the country/rock androgyny that had made them America s band (my quote, so get your hands off it), probably figuring that a turn toward pop/rock and even disco was more in line with their aforementioned Afros and newfound fondness for coke. The result was The Long Run, the last we d see of em together until they reemerged as really old men in the 1990 s like a hound dog with a broken hip that just won t seem to die.
I can tell you why The Long Run is worth investigating, but prepare thyself for this cold hard fact- almost half the album blows. For all the talent that existed between these guys as musicians, for all of Don Henley s celebrated abilities as a storyteller, for all of Timothy B. s long tresses spread across your lap like a really big and erotic palm frond, the truth is that the titles are the best thing about songs such as The Disco Strangler, Teenage Jail, and The Greeks Don t Want No Freaks. Seriously- unless you want to hear Glenn Frey s limited skills as a performer of keyboard solos or one of the most Caucasian groups on the planet trying to get funky , then believe me when I say that those three tracks have nary a redeeming feature about them. Album closer The Sad Cafe ain t much good either, treading as it does the tired grounds of Hotel California and showing us the ghastly preciousness that d soon become the principal feature of Henley s solo work.
But hey, at least we have the title track, a radio-friendly piece of poppy rock that somehow works. Timothy lends his beautiful falsetto to I Can t Tell You Why, an outstanding ballad that almost caused an altercation between myself and a friend who insisted that the song was by The Neville Brothers. With Joe Walsh s barstool up the nose vocal approach, it s hard to imagine that In The City made it on here instead of on a solo album, but there it is. Heartache Tonight is an almost countrified shake-a-boom written by Frey, Henley, Bob Seger, and some other guy, and one that allows Glenn to make an appearance on an album that otherwise seems strangely devoid of his hick-on-Broadway vocal sound.
Oddly, my two favorites would have to be the sexily grooving foot-fetish anthem Those Shoes (hey, they even break the talk box out on this one!) and the mellow yet dark King Of Hollywood, where we meet some old guy who gets to try out all the up-and-coming talent in the movie industry. Even with all the tail his jacuzzi s seen, the poor fellow just can t get off, which Frey and/or Henley (who the hell is that singing anyway?) attributes to the feller having a very tiny weenie. Unless something tragic happens out on the farm, that s thankfully a dilemma I ll never have to deal with.
Because I m something of a heretic and about as much of a country boy as I am a manatee, allow me to recommend The Long Run over most of what they put out before it. The Eagles always had anywhere from two to five really good numbers per album, but the difference here is that the bad ones are failed attempts at disco (or something- Godwin knows what they intended with Greeks or The Disco Strangler) instead of baldness-inducingly bland country numbers. The diversity of this album is partially its undoing, but it also makes me wonder what things might ve been like had they stayed together in the 80 s. Granted, we wouldn t have Smuggler s Blues to chuckle about and/or fornicate to, but we wouldn t have The End Of The Innocence sitting like an unpassed stool in our musical history either. A high three stars for at least losing the cowboy boots and whipping out a medium-sized johnson s worth of decent material on the eve of their dissolution.
Hotel California http://www.epinions.com/conten
Sucky Don Henley Solo Shite http://www.epinions.com/conten
Hotel California and the success that followed in its wake had done some funny things to Henley, Frey, Bender, Walsh, and Donnie Boy Felder. They seemed to be leaving behind the country/rock androgyny that had made them America s band (my quote, so get your hands off it), probably figuring that a turn toward pop/rock and even disco was more in line with their aforementioned Afros and newfound fondness for coke. The result was The Long Run, the last we d see of em together until they reemerged as really old men in the 1990 s like a hound dog with a broken hip that just won t seem to die.
I can tell you why The Long Run is worth investigating, but prepare thyself for this cold hard fact- almost half the album blows. For all the talent that existed between these guys as musicians, for all of Don Henley s celebrated abilities as a storyteller, for all of Timothy B. s long tresses spread across your lap like a really big and erotic palm frond, the truth is that the titles are the best thing about songs such as The Disco Strangler, Teenage Jail, and The Greeks Don t Want No Freaks. Seriously- unless you want to hear Glenn Frey s limited skills as a performer of keyboard solos or one of the most Caucasian groups on the planet trying to get funky , then believe me when I say that those three tracks have nary a redeeming feature about them. Album closer The Sad Cafe ain t much good either, treading as it does the tired grounds of Hotel California and showing us the ghastly preciousness that d soon become the principal feature of Henley s solo work.
But hey, at least we have the title track, a radio-friendly piece of poppy rock that somehow works. Timothy lends his beautiful falsetto to I Can t Tell You Why, an outstanding ballad that almost caused an altercation between myself and a friend who insisted that the song was by The Neville Brothers. With Joe Walsh s barstool up the nose vocal approach, it s hard to imagine that In The City made it on here instead of on a solo album, but there it is. Heartache Tonight is an almost countrified shake-a-boom written by Frey, Henley, Bob Seger, and some other guy, and one that allows Glenn to make an appearance on an album that otherwise seems strangely devoid of his hick-on-Broadway vocal sound.
Oddly, my two favorites would have to be the sexily grooving foot-fetish anthem Those Shoes (hey, they even break the talk box out on this one!) and the mellow yet dark King Of Hollywood, where we meet some old guy who gets to try out all the up-and-coming talent in the movie industry. Even with all the tail his jacuzzi s seen, the poor fellow just can t get off, which Frey and/or Henley (who the hell is that singing anyway?) attributes to the feller having a very tiny weenie. Unless something tragic happens out on the farm, that s thankfully a dilemma I ll never have to deal with.
Because I m something of a heretic and about as much of a country boy as I am a manatee, allow me to recommend The Long Run over most of what they put out before it. The Eagles always had anywhere from two to five really good numbers per album, but the difference here is that the bad ones are failed attempts at disco (or something- Godwin knows what they intended with Greeks or The Disco Strangler) instead of baldness-inducingly bland country numbers. The diversity of this album is partially its undoing, but it also makes me wonder what things might ve been like had they stayed together in the 80 s. Granted, we wouldn t have Smuggler s Blues to chuckle about and/or fornicate to, but we wouldn t have The End Of The Innocence sitting like an unpassed stool in our musical history either. A high three stars for at least losing the cowboy boots and whipping out a medium-sized johnson s worth of decent material on the eve of their dissolution.
Hotel California http://www.epinions.com/conten
Sucky Don Henley Solo Shite http://www.epinions.com/conten
Review ID: 10000000006848209
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