Eagles

It's a strange fate that has befallen the Eagles. As the most representative — and certainly the most successful — expression of 1970s American country-rock, protagonists of a saga littered with bestselling albums and sold-out shows, the Californian band has often ended up paying a price, in the eyes of more dogmatic critics, for their embrace of popular music, their pursuit of catchy hooks and warm, seductive vocal harmonies. Too hybrid a formula for country purists, too soft for rock diehards on permanent active duty. And then there's that string of staggering numbers that can't help but arouse suspicion among those who still see the charts as some demonic projection of the music business: seven number-one singles and six number-one albums, five American Music Awards, 150 million records sold worldwide (100 million in the US alone).

It's probably epics like this one that punk was born to destroy. And yet, in the eternal cycle of history repeating itself, the Eagles would soar high again in the rock skies of the new millennium — perhaps translated into "indie" by swarms of alt-country bands, or recast in a new pop-rock guise by all those who, burying the hatchet of old religious wars, approached their music without prejudice. Music that is, above all, warmth and passion, but also intimacy and aching melancholy, the kind inspired by endless prairies and Western legends. Music that would find its ideal "home" in other boundless spaces: the great American motorways, riding the airwaves of countless FM stations.

The story is well known: the culprit was Linda Ronstadt and her 1970 album "Silk Purse". It provided the occasion for the fateful meeting between the future members of the Eagles, who had already spent years working as songwriters and session musicians on the Californian scene. Texan drummer Don Henley (ex-Shiloh) and Michigan guitarist Glenn Frey, a friend and collaborator of Jackson Browne, first met in 1970 at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. By the time Ronstadt recruited them, the two were already friends. The union of the duo with guitarist Bernie Leadon and bassist Randy Meisner gave birth to the band's first line-up, whose name — according to legend — originated from a collective "trip", fuelled by LSD and tequila, in the Mojave Desert.

From here on it's a breathless dash to success: a handful of hugely successful albums — "Eagles" (1972), "Desperado" (1973), "On The Border" (1974), "One Of These Nights" (1975) — alongside a couple of line-up changes: the arrival of guitarist Don Felder (ex-Flow) and the replacement of Leadon with Joe Walsh. It was this latter move that allowed the band to complete their transformation, breaking almost entirely free of their country roots to embrace a more rock-oriented sound, built around the virtuosity of Felder and Walsh and a rawer, more powerful tone, while still keeping an eye on the pop melodies that had already illuminated the wonderful "One Of These Nights".

On December 20, 1976, the Eagles released what is probably their masterpiece and spiritual testament: "Hotel California". The hard-won result of eight months of recording, marked by the obsessive perfectionism of the Frey-Henley partnership and the crystalline production of Bill Szymczyk, the album explores the theme of America's decadence, increasingly corrupted by its growing materialism, through a subtle vein of melancholy and disillusionment.

The keystone of the entire record is, of course, the celebrated title track that opens it: a powerful portrait of the hedonism, luxury and self-destruction of the Los Angeles upper class, disguised as a melancholy twelve-string ballad. It all unfolds within that quintessentially West Coast epic of riding with the wind in your hair, distilled in the opening line itself: "On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair". But this is a dark, deceptive California, a mirror of an America that has lost its innocence. Don Henley described it as "a song about the dark underbelly of the American dream, and about excess in America, which is something we knew a lot about," referring also to drug and alcohol dependency. The insistent opening arpeggio, Henley's thin yet raspy, "desert-worn" voice, the irresistible chorus and the extraordinary closing solo, in which Felder's and Walsh's guitars weave and trade licks, have branded one of the most staggering rock evergreens of all time.

The transience of love and success, told through the story of a young kid who arrives in the city of stars chasing fame, are instead at the heart of "New Kid In Town", a sweet song marked by lush vocal harmonies, an elegant electric piano and Maisner's Mexican guitarrón. Walsh's main contribution to the album comes both from co-writing (alongside Henley and Frey) and from the powerful riff of "Life In The Fast Lane", a pulsating rock tour de force about the "fast" life of a well-off Californian couple, amid outrageous parties, the right pills and high-speed drives. The aching beauty of "Wasted Time" closes side one: it's the end of a love affair described through Henley's pained voice, accompanied mainly by piano and strings, with the usual obligatory backing vocals – an arrangement that directly recalls the famous "Desperado", but with an added touch of anguish.

A brief instrumental reprise of "Wasted Time" opens side B, acting as a prelude to the incendiary "Victim Of Love", where distorted guitars mask the story of a violent, desperate love ("What kind of love have you got?/ You should be home, but you're not/ A room full of noise and dangerous boys/ Still makes you thirsty and hot"). The excellent ballad "Pretty Maids All In A Row", written by Walsh (who also sings here), continues down the path of melancholy, offering a heartfelt reflection on time relentlessly slipping away, carrying off people and things and leaving behind only the shadow of a memory. Maisner, meanwhile, writes and sings "Try And Love Again", a track with a vaguely country flavour, enriched by the notes of a slide guitar, before the final salvo entrusted to the wonderful "The Last Resort", over seven minutes long and an ideal follow-up to "Hotel California". Delicate and poignant, the song, sung by Henley, tackles the destruction of nature's beauty and of the ecosystem. An unsuspected environmentalist streak and a veiled nihilism run through this elegy on the death of the American dream and the dawn of a new era steeped in greed and ambition. Farewell, California dreamin'.

For fans of rock satanism, there will be no shortage of new legends, based on certain interpretations of the cover art, depicting a spectral building, with, on the back, the deserted lobby of the imaginary hotel (hotel = hell?) in which mysterious figures could supposedly be glimpsed. There would even be a theory claiming that the Hotel California was a building in San Francisco, bought by Anton LaVey and converted into the headquarters of the Church of Satan. A profusion of fantasies that not even the band's official denials will ever manage to put to rest.

In the early months of 1977, while punk was laying waste to rock's old idols, "Hotel California" would go on to sell over sixteen million copies in the United States alone, topping the charts for a full eight weeks. The singles taken from it, "Hotel California" and "New Kid In Town", would shoot to the top of the Billboard Hot 100, while "Life In The Fast Lane" reached a solid number eleven. Rounding out the tally were several nominations and two Grammy wins – for Record Of The Year and Best Arrangement For Voices (for "New Kid In Town") – plus a silver medal as Album Of The Year, behind the epoch-making "Rumours" by Fleetwood Mac.

The story of the Eagles would go on for a long time, through breakups and reconciliations, but without ever again reaching these heights. What the Californian band would never lack, not even in the new millennium, was success: in 2001, with "Greatest Hits, Volume II", came the RIAA's third diamond certification for selling more than ten million copies, a milestone already surpassed by "Hotel California" and "Their Greatest Hits: 1971-1975" – further proof of a bond with the rock audience that withstands the passing seasons and easy labels.

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17/02/2013