The Eagles - Dirty Laundry (1981)
The Eagles broke up in 1980, and by all accounts it was an acrimonious dissolution. So much so, that when Don Henley was once asked if the band would ever get back together, he replied 'When Hell freezes over'. Inevitably they did reform, and the resultant live album was called 'Hell Freezes Over'. But what if they hadn't broken up after the disappointing 'The Long Run' album, and had buckled down and written some better songs. The resultant album could have been the one to put them back at the top of their game, and this is what it could have sounded like. It seemed that in 1981, most of the members of the band were happy to give up songs here and there to soundtrack albums, and so a lot of these songs are quite hard to find, but when they are all put together they do form a coherent whole, and don't at all sound like they've come from such disparate sources. For the record, Don Felder's 'Heavy Metal' comes from the soundtrack of the movie of the same name, as does his 'All Of You'. Joe Walsh's party anthem 'All Night Long' comes from the 'Urban Cowboy' soundtrack, and 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High' provides Henley's ballad 'Love Rules,' Felder's 'Never Surrender', and Timothy B. Schmit's 'So Much In Love'. 'Leather And Lace' is a duet by Don Henley and Stevie Nicks, from her 'Bella Donna' album, and the rest of the songs come from the band member's 1981 solo albums. It's a far cry from the exquisite country-rock of their early records, but it's the direction that they were heading in following the massive success of 'Hotel California', and to a lesser extent 'The Long Run', so this this is a reasonable representation of where they were at in 1981.
Track Listing
01 Heavy Metal (Takin' A Ride)02 Dirty Laundry 03 So Much In Love 04 All Night Long 05 The One You Love 06 A Life of Illusion 07 Leather and Lace (with Stevie Nicks)08 I Found Somebody 09 Hearts Of Fire10 Love Rules11 Never Surrender 12 All Of You
The concept and (quite literal) album cover are from the now deleted archive of The Album Fixer.
Just a quick question... why include Randy Meisner as he had left the band in 1977. Timothy B. Schmit, (who replaced Meisner) did have the song "So Much In Love" on the Fast Times at Ridgemont High soundtrack in'82. So while technically not released in the right year, it was probably recorded in '81.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest I don't know why Randy Meisner was included, but Album Fixer's notes did say 'Next up is Randy Meissner's "Gotta Get Away," a very nice, simple song by one of the founding members of the band who left in 1977, but magically returns for this album', so I guess he had his reasons. I left off the Timothy B. Schmit song as it was a cover, and I was keeping the album to all original songs, but logically it makes sense to replace 'Gotta Get Away' with 'So Much In Love' so that's what I've now done. Thanks for pointing it out.
DeleteMy only alteration would be the inclusion of "Glenn Frey's "Partytown". It was a successful single from the No Fun Aloud album from 1982. For some reason (maybe because GF switched labels?), this song is shown no love on any of GF best-of compilations.
ReplyDeleteDirty Laundry is still an awesome song!
ReplyDelete