"They don't fit my assumptions about Rock and Roll, they must suck!"
What a terrible article. Don't like them? Fine. It's music and is subjective. Hate them because they are included in a genre and you don't agree? WTF. Particularly a few days after their founder dies? Click-bait at it's worst IMO.
If you don't think Hotel California is Rock and Roll, and I don't even know what to say.
Hey I liked the clash, and the rolling stones, and lou reed.
but I also really liked the Eagles.
People can complain that their music was safe and easy listening, or hillybilly rock. But you can't argue with the execution of their type of music.
the litmus test is really this.
The clash is really known for a couple of songs.
London Calling, and Rock the Casbah, and maybe even Radio Clash.
Lou reed is maybe know or recognized for a couple of songs. Unless your a hipster and you knew about Lou Reed before anyone else.
Sex Pistols (who were really the first truly manufactured band) were know for two great songs (God Save the Queen, I did it my ways)
The Eagles, when you look at their catalog, and especially their greatest hits, how many songs are they remembered for and are well known.
As much as the writer wants to classify rock and roll as sitting on an edge of rebellion and anger and crashing guitars and swearing, Rock and Roll is whatever people who listen to it want to define it as.
Sure the Eagles were safe, they didn't in the words of the doors want to murder your family and have incest based rap of their own mother), or rage at the world like the Clash.
They played music, that was their aim and their goal and they were exceedingly good at it. Probably one of the top musical acts from my day.
Sometime music is just plain music.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Even those mentioned, how is "Walk on the Wild Side" not easy listening? It's literally two notes at it's base.
I love the Stones, but they have a plethora of easy-listening tunes (Angie, Wild Horses, Beast of Burden, etc.. could probably name 20), and A LOT of crap that comes with having a career spanning 5 decades. Almost all Rock and Roll acts have songs that dip into easy listening. Beatles, Stones, Led Zeppelin, the list could go on and on.
Pigeon-holing the Eagles into one category, and then lambasting them for it, is completely ridiculous. I'm not even a big Eagles fan, but it seems like some kind of sour grapes, for some reason. Did Henley bang this guys wife or something?
Even those mentioned, how is "Walk on the Wild Side" not easy listening? It's literally two notes at it's base.
I love the Stones, but they have a plethora of easy-listening tunes (Angie, Wild Horses, Beast of Burden, etc.. could probably name 20), and A LOT of crap that comes with having a career spanning 5 decades. Almost all Rock and Roll acts have songs that dip into easy listening. Beatles, Stones, Led Zeppelin, the list could go on and on.
Pigeon-holing the Eagles into one category, and then lambasting them for it, is completely ridiculous. I'm not even a big Eagles fan, but it seems like some kind of sour grapes, for some reason. Did Henley bang this guys wife or something?
Well because walk on the wild side featured cross dressing, male prostitution and a groupie giving head.
So what he's talking about is more lyrical I guess then anything else.
Listening to edgy music just to say that your listening to edgy music which makes you edgy.
In other words he's trying to be the cool kid in his article.
Which is fine.
Hell I used to listen to satanic music growing up like real satanic music guess I should hate the eagles because they don't talk about sacrificing babies to the Morning Star.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
I never liked country music so the Eagles always pretty much left me cold, about twenty years ago, ironically after watching a Kevin Costner movie, I decided I had to really go back and see where country had come from, I bought some compilations of early country, 30's and 40's Carter Family, Delmore Brothers, Roy Acuff and the Stanley Brothers to listen too on the long drive from Vancouver to Winnipeg, out there in the middle of the Sand Hills it all made sense, the sad grim view of a life of toil.
At that point I really started to hate the Eagles, country music used to be blues for the poor white guy, it had soul and pathos and reflected the crappy poverty filled lives of its listeners, it was, to my amazement, brilliant.
The Eagles were such a pale insipid imitation of that music, as is all modern country really, it still annoys me that Taylor Swift and Hotel California are what's left of a truely great soulful genre of music that used to plug directly into the soul of poor Americans.
It's not really the Eagles fault, Nashville was well on its way to the dire state of arena rock with a bit of violin thrown in so we can pretend it's country that it is now and Garth brooks would probably have happened no matter what, but it still sticks in my craw that 'I long To See the Old Folks' or Great Speckled Bird has been turned into such insipid crap.
Well because walk on the wild side featured cross dressing, male prostitution and a groupie giving head.
So what he's talking about is more lyrical I guess then anything else.
Listening to edgy music just to say that your listening to edgy music which makes you edgy.
In other words he's trying to be the cool kid in his article.
Which is fine.
Hell I used to listen to satanic music growing up like real satanic music guess I should hate the eagles because they don't talk about sacrificing babies to the Morning Star.
I don't think that's the criticism. The Eagles are just bland lyrically and musically. They're not risk-takers and certainly not innovative. There's just no substance to them. They're the musical equivalent of a Boston Pizza.
I liked Frey and Henley's solo careers more but that's because I grew up in a post-Eagles era.
I didn't know about what they did to Felder. Money squabbles in a band are always polarizing. As the main writers, they would already receive the lion's share of proceeds and royalties without having to screw Felder out of even more.
The royalty system is messed up. Any musician knows that for many songs, their composition arrives where it is because of contributions from every member, not just the guy who wrote the lyrics or decided on the chord structure.
