Eagles

Hotel California

The Eagles' finest hour on album

Review Score:

(10/10)
The Eagles' fifth studio album Hotel California was released in December of 1976. The album is regarded as the band's best and for good reason. The album was the band's first album of original material since 1975's One of These Nights. A chart-topping Greatest Hits album which hit #1 was released in February of 1976 until the band got a proper replacement for guitarist Bernie Leadon whom left in late 1975. Enter solo superstar/James Gang guitarist Joe Walsh as he joined drummer Don Henley, guitarists Glenn Frey and Don Felder and bassist Randy Meisner and went to Criteria Studios in Miami that March to record the band's classic contribution to rock and roll history. The opening title track contains one of the greatest dual guitar solos of all time with Felder and Walsh alternatilg ala Clapton and Allman and the song itself is a treat about a state of mind called Southern California as it was in the 70s. That track was the second single and second #1 hit from this album. The first chart-topping single New Kid In Town follows and harkened back to the early Eagles sound and tells the story of fame and failure and knowing them as impostors that they are. The hard rocking Top 20 hit Life In The Fast Lane is next and brings Walsh's guitar riff together with biting lyrics from Henley and Frey about excess and self-destruction. The first half ends with the classic Wasted Time, which slowed things down again and is a great ballad about a good person in a bad relationship with a beautiful Philadelphia-soul sound type string arrangement. The second half kicks off with the Wasted Time Reprise before rocking out again with Victim of Love, the only track without overdubs at all. We slow down again with the first Joe Walsh vocal on an Eagles track with the ballad Pretty Maids All In a Row with Joe on piano and synthesizers. Randy's Try and Love Again is a mid-tempo song and would be a great way for Randy to finish his time with the band as he would leave in the summer of 1977. The closing The Last Resort is a great ballad and the lyrics are about the world destroying its environment and is a song that still holds up today. Hotel California deservedly hit #1 on the album charts upon release in late 1976 and has sold a staggering 16 million copies in the US alone and still holds up today, especially with the remastering job courtesy of Ted Jensen in 1999. Highly recommended!

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