OldNewRockMusic: Eagles - Hotel California (2CD 40th Anniversary Edition) (1976)

Year: December 8, 1976 (CD November 24, 2017)
Label: Asylum Records (Europe), R2-562944
Style: Rock, Country Rock, Soft Rock
Country: Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Time: 43:27, 48:38
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 295, 330 Mb

Hotel California showcases both the best and worst tendencies of Los Angeles-situated rock, but more strikingly its lyrics present a convincing and unflattering portrait of the milieu itself. Don Henley, handling five of the eight vocal tracks, expresses well the weary disgust of a victim (or observer) of the region's luxurious excess.

Yet the record's firm musical bases cannot be overlooked. Bernie Leadon departed and Joe Walsh arrived; the Eagles have abandoned most of their bluegrass and country & western claims in favor of a more overt rock stance. Walsh's exact effect isn't always obvious, but his record does have subtleties and edges that have sometimes eluded the group. The title cut, for example, incorporates a pinch of reggae so smoothly that it's more felt than heard. "Life in the Fast Lane," propelled by Walsh's guitar and Glenn Frey's clavinet, rocks like it really means it; "Victim of Love" works similarly, though at a slower tempo. Henley is superb on all three.

The frequent orchestration, however, doesn't always fit. "Pretty Maids All in a Row" employs glistening, high-pitched string synthesizer to good effect, adding a reserved tension to the slowly paced arrangement; but the approach fails on "Wasted Time," an overarranged wash embodying the worst of rock-cum-Hollywood sensibilities. What does work is the elegant fullness of "The Last Resort," whose concluding words sum up Hotel California: "You call some place Paradise...kiss it goodbye."

(Charley Walters, Rolling Stone, 2/24/77)

Try not to get too hung up on how middle-class their backgrounds may be, or whether there's any real sagebrush sticking to their spurs; the Eagles are pros and they try to represent themselves honestly. In their new Hotel California their professional standards are pretty high, and the result is a satisfying, well-turned album.

The most commercial song, "New Kid in Town", has more depth than we have any right to expect of the most commercial track in the latest album by a group with a large and faithful following already primed to salivate at the sound of the opening chords. I mean the Eagles could get by with a lot more coasting than they do in this instance. They could take more chances, too, of course, but this one seems to suggest that that may be a matter of constitution: their vision is tight and tidy; they don't have individual genius or a hot-dog soloist in their midst, but versatile part players and cooperators thinking Arrangement and Detail.

There is good contrast here between the acoustic and the electric aspects of their style, a smattering of dandy if derivative melodies (check "Wasted Time" and "The Last Resort"), some lyrics that reflect actual thought, and first-rate, unfancy vocals. I never thought I'd be praising a "group mentality" all over the place, but I guess it depends on what the group mentality does. Or maybe it's just rare to find a group that has mentality. Whatever, the Eagles have harnessed something here and made it do some fine work.

(Noel Coppage, Stereo Review, 4/77)

This long-awaited album of new Eagles material more than lives up to its highest expectations, as hundreds of thousands of concertgoers who heard the L.A. quintet in person this summer and fall performing songs from the upcoming LP can attest. The casually beautiful, quietly intense, multileveled vocal harmonies and brilliant original songs that meld solid emotional words with lovely melody lines are all back in full force, keeping the Eagles at the acme of acoustic-electric soft rock. At least three of the cuts are among the group's best ever and would seem likely to make memorable singles, if preliminary album-cut airplay is any reliable indication. With the exception of the lengthy Procol Harum-type title cut, the group isn't trying out any new departures here. But the album proves that there's a lot more left to explore profitably and artistically in the L.A. countryish-rock style. And Joe Walsh's hard rock lead guitar adds just enough extra impetus on a few effective change-of-pace uptempo tunes. However, the Eagles are still best on pretty ballads that grab the ear by smooth sound textures, and there's plenty of this on the LP, which ships platinum. Best cuts: "New Kid In Town," "Wasted Time," "Hotel California," "Try And Love Again," "The Last Resort."

(Billboard, 1977)

Don Henley once called this best-selling of all Eagles' albums "the zenith of our career." On this album the Eagles lineup consisted of Henley, Glenn Frey, Don Felder, Joe Walsh and Randy Meisner. Hotel California generated two US number one singles, the title track and "New Kid in Town," and spent eight weeks on the top of the LP chart. "Life in the Fast Lane," a moderate hit single, reinforced the use of its title phrase to describe a particular seventies lifestyle. Henley and Frey's "The Last Resort" was a major extended piece.

"We were all middle-class kids from the Midwest," Henley said of the Eagles. "'Hotel California' was our interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles. It was meant to be a metaphor for the United States, for the excesses this country has always been known for. It wasn't meant to be just about California or Beverly Hills. It was more or less taken that way, but we had broader intentions than that. When you love something, you have to point out the things that are going wrong."

In 1987, Hotel California was chosen by a panel of rock critics and music broadcasters as the #48 rock album of all time.

(Paul Gambaccini, The 100 Rock 'n' Roll Albums of All Time, Harmony Books, 1987)

CD1: Hotel California

01. Hotel California (06:31)
02. New Kid In Town (05:04)
03. Life In The Fast Lane (04:46)
04. Wasted Time (04:56)
05. Wasted Time (01:23)
06. Victim Of Love (04:10)
07. Pretty Maids All In A Row (03:59)
08. Try And Love Again (05:11)
09. The Last Resort (07:24)

CD2: Live At The LA 1976

01. Take It Easy (04:47)
02. Take It To The Limit (05:18)
03. New Kid In Town (04:52)
04. James Dean (03:49)
05. Good Day In Hell (05:28)
06. Witchy Woman (04:20)
07. Funk #49 (04:03)
08. One Of These Nights (03:52)
09. Hotel California (06:49)
10. Already Gone (05:15)