Every track is a sonic masterpiece.” More forceful was Santa Monica stoner Jeffery Lebowski, who simply put it, “I hate the fuckin’ Eagles, man.”īefore The Eagles recorded Hotel California, founding guitarist Bernie Leadon, who had played in country-rock pioneers The Flying Burrito Brothers with Gram Parsons, quit the band and was replaced by Joe Walsh, he of the gleaming guitar riff on “Life in the Fast Lane.” Hotel California consequently found the Eagles at their most rock-ish, diluting much of the country feel that populated their first four studio albums. Novelist and Los Angeles native Bret Easton Ellis, always sure-footed in his opinions, couldn’t seem to stop himself from hedging when in 2013 he tweeted in 2013: “The Eagles ‘Hotel California’ album for better or worse is the grand apex of self-pitying Boomer rock.
Decades later, even Southern Californians can’t agree on The Eagles. Their ubiquitous modern-Bakersfield country sound was barely country, not really rock ‘n’ roll in the rebellious, anarchic sense, and shot through with keyed-up metaphors and allegories about being a rich, drug-addicted American in the post-hippie, pre-yuppie USA. Incredibly, their first greatest-hits collection came out the year before the release of Hotel California, and now both reside among the 20 best-selling albums ever. Before 2017 comes to a close, and with it the 40th anniversary of Hotel California earning five Grammy nominations (including a Record of the Year trophy for its title track) and instantly becoming one of the best-selling and most divisive albums in rock history, let’s consider the perpetual question of whether The Eagles are actually any good, merely tolerable or quite terrible.Įveryone seems to have an opinion, maybe because The Eagles are undeniably one of the most successful bands of all time-if not the most successful.
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