The Eagles: Polarising Music since '71
The Eagles released their self titled debut album 49 years ago today, and despite all their achievements, have been successful at polarising opinions ever since.
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Hi Everyone,
49 years ago to this day, The Eagles released their debut studio album, titled"Eagles" and would forever change how laidback American country-rock music would be perceived around the world.
The album was an immediate success reaching No.22 on the charts & was later named in the Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time and its single "Take It Easy", a part of the Rock Hall of Fame’s "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll"
The Eagles are one of the most accomplished rock bands in the history of American music and in their 32 active years (and counting), their record speaks for itself:-
🤑 A collective net worth of $800 million
💽 200 Million Records sold to date
🎷Won 6 Grammy Awards with 18 nominations
📈 7 Studio Albums with 6 of them reaching No.1 on the charts
🤯 Best selling album of the 20th Century
🏆 Inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Despite this insane record, the Eagles probably remain one of the most hated bands in the United States. That’s not my opinion, just try and google it.
I myself when researching for this was shocked at the divided and polarising opinions people had on the Eagles.
It is said that America can be divided into two parts- people who adore the Eagles and people who vehemently hate it to the point where it becomes a part of their identity.
But why is it that one of the most successful music acts of the ’70s is also one of the most hated?
Before that, Let’s first get into the story of the Eagles 🦅 👇🏻
The Eagles’ journey began in early 1971 when Eagles’ frontman Glenn Frey and co-vocalist and drummer Don Henley were recruited by 10 time Grammy winner and Country Rock singer Linda Ronstadt to play in her band.
They became acquainted through their record label, Amos Records and would go on to tour with Linda to promote her album “Silk Purse”. While on that tour, Frey and Henley decided to form their own band.
When they pitched the idea to Linda, she suggested “Bernie Leadon” and “Randy Meisner” to join and the four would then go on to be signed in 1971 under “Asylum Records”.
The band got their name “The Eagles” when the group was out on a tequila-influenced trip to the Mojave Desert, California. Frey shouted out, "Eagles!" when they saw eagles flying above and an early friend of the band, Steve Martin suggested they call themselves that.
From 1971-1975, The Eagles released 4 studio albums- Eagles, Desperado, On the Border, and One of These Nights- with multiple No.1 hits, and this period laid the foundation for Frey and Henley as the de-facto leaders of the band, with their partnership in song-writing being very fruitful for the band.
To put the Eagles’ mid-’70s dominance into perspective, consider this:
In early 1976, the group released Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975, a compilation that would spend the next half-decade in the Billboard Top 200 and go on to become the biggest-selling American album of the 20th century 📈
And the crazy part? Their most iconic song “Hotel California” was not even released yet! 🤯
Their 4th album “One of these Nights” was the last album to feature the founding member “Bernie Leadon” as he quit over creative differences with Frey. One night, Leadon poured cold beer over Frey’s head and asked him to chill out when Frey asked about what direction the band should take.
That pretty much sealed the fate for Leadon’s place in the band.
In December 1975, Leadon would leave and would make space for “Joe Walsh”, the new kid in town. Having already tasted success as an individual artist, there were some initial concerns as to Walsh's ability to fit in with the band, as he was considered too "wild" for the Eagles.
However, Walsh was featured for the first time in their 5th studio album “Hotel California”.
The single “New Kid In Town” became their 3rd No.1 Single and the album became one of the most iconic pieces of music released in Rock history.
‘Hotel California’ won the Grammy award for "Record of the Year" and in 1998 its long guitar coda was voted the best guitar solo of all time by readers of Guitarist.
It remains the band's most iconic and best-selling studio album, with more than 17 million copies sold in the U.S. alone and more than 32 million copies worldwide.
Following the classic Rock band narrative, the fame of Hotel California hit them hard, the members burnt out with just one more album- The Long Run released before they broke up in 1980 to focus on their individual music careers.
The Eagles did come back in 1994, and toured till 2016, following the death of Glenn Frey on January 16th, in New York.
So despite cementing their place as one of the best rock bands of all time, why does the band polarise opinions in the manner it does?
1) East Coast vs West Coast rivalry.
NY music journalist Robert Christgau, writing in Newsday in 1972 said:
“Another thing that interests me about the Eagles is that I hate them... The Eagles are the ultimate in California dreaming, a fantasy of fulfillment that has been made real only in the hip upper-middle-class suburbs of Marin County and the Los Angeles canyons.”
2) They weren’t punk enough
The Daily News slam characterized the Eagles as “easy listening… even too soft for an elevator… the music your mom and dad would let you play on the living room hi-fi”
The entire punk movement is often remembered as a reaction to the Eagles and their soft rock- easy listening type of music.
3) Generational Gap
When Pop Star Frank Ocean sampled “Hotel California” in his debut mixtape Nostalgia, Ultra in 2011, Healy responded to this flattering instance by calling Frank Ocean a “Talentless Prick”.
The mixtape was the first time a lot of millennials were exposed to the magic of ‘Hotel California’. Check it out here 👇🏻
And this was not the first instance when the band members would get mad at someone. They were mad at the press, their label, their publicists, concert promoters, fellow musicians, and one another.
Our Take on This?
Every artist that has ever stepped foot in the music industry has had their issues. The mental toll of being a celebrity is not handled well as it is easy to become “Arrogant” when you touch new heights with your art.
Despite having a short temper for critics and well, almost everyone, The Eagles will always go down as one of the most iconic bands in American Rock history whether people like it or not. And to belittle people for liking Eagles is definitely something that does not make sense.
Music should be celebrated and enjoyed by people as a community and no one should be shamed for enjoying any artist, least of all a band as accomplished as The Eagles.
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