Eagles

Hotel California

Deserving of the "classic" tag

Review Score:

(10/10)
This is a hard album to review. "Hotel California" is almost sacred among music lovers, the most succesful classic rock record of all time, and the title track is neck and neck with "Stairway to Heaven" when people talk about the greatest rock song ever.
So is it really all that?

Well, yes and no. No, it is not all that, meaning that "Hotel California" itself - the fabled title song - is by far the best song on the album, nothing else comes close. But also yes, because even the lesser known album tracks (like the pleasant "Try And Love Again" or the grand ballad "Wasted Time") would have been the shining centerpiece of almost any other seventies rock record. Which shows just how good that one song really is.

Not everything on "Hotel California" is great, but nothing is less than good. The three singles are the standouts, "Hotel California", the hard-rocking "Life In The Fast Lane" and the lovely, ballad-like "New Kid In Town", a patented Glenn Frey-tune. All of them are classics in their own right, and even though the other two do not measure up to "Hotel California", they're still much better than everything else on the album - with the possible exception of "Try And Love Again", which sports a great lead vocal by primary composer Randy Meisner, a lovely melody, and superb lead guitar playing by Glenn Frey.

"Victim Of Love" is a hard, cut-and-shuffle rocker with some crashing power chords by Frey and Felder, and mean slide guitar by Joe Walsh. "Wasted Time" is a stately piano ballad with great lyrics, beautifully sung by Don Henley. Joe Walsh takes center stage for "Pretty Maids All In A Row", which is a minor song only because it sits next to the mighty "Hotel California" which overshadows everything.

The closing track is another ballad, perhaps more notable for Henley's masterful vocals and angry, scorching lyrics than for its melody and arrangement, but a keeper nonetheless.

So is it as great as everybody says it is? Well, if you leave off the title track, you have a terrific, four-or-five star record in its own right, with impeccable vocals and masterful playing, superbly produced. Add "Hotel California", and you have probably the best classic rock record of all time.

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