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THE EAGLES "HOTEL CALIFORNIA" LP  (U.S.ASYLUM) 1976 GATE FOLD RMMI 1084 SEALED SO RARE SEALED  ASSUME POSTER TO BE HERE. The Eagles were ahead of the curve and it would take several more years before the seamy underbelly of society would be seen for all of its relentless mindless excess and would be called to task by the punk movement. Though looking back at its zenith, The Eagles captured a snapshot of not only their personal lives, but that of all our lives, showing it to us in a manner from which we could not turn away; where it was more as if we reveled in the looking. February 26, 1977, the year Hotel California was released was only a couple of years after the end of the war in Vietnam, a war that tore this nation more then in half, 1977 was also only eight years after the famed Woodstock and the fall of Flower Power, the end of the psychedelic music scene, and the tired endings to the protest movement. After all of this, people simply wanted to numb themselves, sleep and conspicuously consume, to allow themselves to feel something, even if it was false, to fool themselves into feeling good, where a life in the fast lane fueled with cocaine, Quaaludes and mindless disco filled the bill.
When The Eagles, who blossomed at the end of the hippy heyday, embraced the sweet harmonies of country rock, building on artists such as The Byrds, Townes Van Zant and Graham Parsons got caught up in the trappings of the excess (the new kids in town), they were certainly one of the first to sound the alarm, attempting to wake the numbed and sleeping masses before the fires could consumed us forever.
The addition of Joe Walsh brought a much harder rock edge to the material of The Eagles. Gone were the bluegrass and country western themes, in favor of a more overt rock posture. The title cut has a dash of reggae incorporated within it that is almost felt rather then heard, and when Glenn Frey matches his clavinet with the guitar of Joe Walsh, “Life In The Fast Lane” is propelled into the stratosphere, allowing for slowed down ever so slightly, “Victim Of Love” to roll on with amazing brilliance. All of these magnificent harmonies from earlier outings were still in tact, with the blending and mixing of vocal styles continuing to be a constant source of pleasure. The Eagles worked as a single unite on this release and what sounds so effortless took more than eight months of studio time to complete. If anything was to rise form the onslaught of compact discs, it is the ability to actually hear what had gotten muddied and mixed when the album was released on vinyl ... and a source of comparison I never tired of showing friends.
I think that people, fans and critics, want to dismiss a successful release, especially when these releases were so successful at showing such a shocking picture in such a beautiful manner. So, no matter how you feel, when you finally sit yourself down and listen, Hotel California is a body of work to be reckoned with for years to come.The idea for "Life In The Fast Lane" was taken from an actual event. Don Henley and some unnamed drug dealer were speeding down the LA Freeway in a convertible Corvette, a car stoked to the gills with cocaine, as was were Henley and the driver. Don said, "Woo man, what's going on?" With the driver simply turning with a smile saying, "Life in the fast lane!" Sometimes the album rumors are nearly as good as the music, and Hotel California has more than its fair share.It’s been long rumored that the song “Hotel California” regards a Christian church that was abandoned back in 1969 and taken over by an occult group, where for some unknown reason, the church became known as Hotel California, that the Eagles were Satanic worshippers and that Satan or the Satanic High Priest Anton LeVey can be seen in the window of the building, supported by the verse “… we haven’t had that spirit (Christ) here since 1969.” Others have said that Hotel California stands in for Aleister Crowley’s mansion, as Crowley was a well know spiritualist. This is supposed by a line in the song “ … they stab it with their steely knives, but they just can’t kill the beast. Crowley’s nickname was The Beast, though in the song, ‘steely’ refers to the band Steely Dan, ‘knives’ are Steely Dan’s songs, and ‘the beast’ is the bigger than life band, Steely Dan.The inner sleeve photo features people in a courtyard of a Spanish style inn. On the balcony above them looms a shadowy figure with its arms spread, welcoming all to Satan’s trap. With the people imaged being totally unaware of of the gleefully evil spirit standing above them, this only adds to the ominous nature of the implicit horror.Other rumors insist that many of the figures in the photo are of captured ghostly images, spirits trapped in this world, accidentally caught on film.Others lay claim to the notion that the song references Camarillo State Hospital, a state run psychiatric hospital near Los Angeles which over it’s nearly seventy-five year history, closing in 1997, housed thousands of mentally disturbed patients, foreshadowing what a mentally deranged person might experience upon incarceration in such a long term facility, where the imagery of the song is explained as one long hallucination, juxtaposed by moments of striating clarity as the person realizes just where they indeed are. In reality, “Hotel California” is an allegory about hedonism and greed in Souther Californian during the 1970’s, where at the time of its release, the Eagles were riding high in the music world, flush with success on a nearly frightening level. While the band certainly enjoyed the money, drugs and women fame had to offer, they were disquieted by all of it, seeking to pour a sense of unease into their music, warning others about the dark underside of such adulation. Don Henley for his part maintains that the song is about a loss of innocence, while also acknowledging that the song reflects a gilded prison in which artist freely enter, yet have no means of escape. The Eagles were ahead of the curve and it would take several more years before the seamy underbelly of society would be seen for all of its relentless mindless excess and would be called to task by the punk movement. Though looking back at its zenith, The Eagles captured a snapshot of not only their personal lives, but that of all our lives, showing it to us in a manner from which we could not turn away; where it was more as if we reveled in the looking. February 26, 1977, the year Hotel California was released was only a couple of years after the end of the war in Vietnam, a war that tore this nation more then in half, 1977 was also only eight years after the famed Woodstock and the fall of Flower Power, the end of the psychedelic music scene, and the tired endings to the protest movement. After all of this, people simply wanted to numb themselves, sleep and conspicuously consume, to allow themselves to feel something, even if it was false, to fool themselves into feeling good, where a life in the fast lane fueled with cocaine, Quaaludes and mindless disco filled the bill.
When The Eagles, who blossomed at the end of the hippy heyday, embraced the sweet harmonies of country rock, building on artists such as The Byrds, Townes Van Zant and Graham Parsons got caught up in the trappings of the excess (the new kids in town), they were certainly one of the first to sound the alarm, attempting to wake the numbed and sleeping masses before the fires could consumed us forever.
The addition of Joe Walsh brought a much harder rock edge to the material of The Eagles. Gone were the bluegrass and country western themes, in favor of a more overt rock posture. The title cut has a dash of reggae incorporated within it that is almost felt rather then heard, and when Glenn Frey matches his clavinet with the guitar of Joe Walsh, “Life In The Fast Lane” is propelled into the stratosphere, allowing for slowed down ever so slightly, “Victim Of Love” to roll on with amazing brilliance. All of these magnificent harmonies from earlier outings were still in tact, with the blending and mixing of vocal styles continuing to be a constant source of pleasure. The Eagles worked as a single unite on this release and what sounds so effortless took more than eight months of studio time to complete. If anything was to rise form the onslaught of compact discs, it is the ability to actually hear what had gotten muddied and mixed when the album was released on vinyl ... and a source of comparison I never tired of showing friends. The Eagles were ahead of the curve and it would take several more years before the seamy underbelly of society would be seen for all of its relentless mindless excess and would be called to task by the punk movement. Though looking back at its zenith, The Eagles captured a snapshot of not only their personal lives, but that of all our lives, showing it to us in a manner from which we could not turn away; where it was more as if we reveled in the looking. February 26, 1977, the year Hotel California was released was only a couple of years after the end of the war in Vietnam, a war that tore this nation more then in half, 1977 was also only eight years after the famed Woodstock and the fall of Flower Power, the end of the psychedelic music scene, and the tired endings to the protest movement. After all of this, people simply wanted to numb themselves, sleep and conspicuously consume, to allow themselves to feel something, even if it was false, to fool themselves into feeling good, where a life in the fast lane fueled with cocaine, Quaaludes and mindless disco filled the bill.
When The Eagles, who blossomed at the end of the hippy heyday, embraced the sweet harmonies of country rock, building on artists such as The Byrds, Townes Van Zant and Graham Parsons got caught up in the trappings of the excess (the new kids in town), they were certainly one of the first to sound the alarm, attempting to wake the numbed and sleeping masses before the fires could consumed us forever.
The addition of Joe Walsh brought a much harder rock edge to the material of The Eagles. Gone were the bluegrass and country western themes, in favor of a more overt rock posture. The title cut has a dash of reggae incorporated within it that is almost felt rather then heard, and when Glenn Frey matches his clavinet with the guitar of Joe Walsh, “Life In The Fast Lane” is propelled into the stratosphere, allowing for slowed down ever so slightly, “Victim Of Love” to roll on with amazing brilliance. All of these magnificent harmonies from earlier outings were still in tact, with the blending and mixing of vocal styles continuing to be a constant source of pleasure. The Eagles worked as a single unite on this release and what sounds so effortless took more than eight months of studio time to complete. If anything was to rise form the onslaught of compact discs, it is the ability to actually hear what had gotten muddied and mixed when the album was released on vinyl ... and a source of comparison I never tired of showing friends. Track listingShow track credits A1 Hotel California6:30 A2 New Kid in Town5:04 A3 Life in the Fast Lane4:46 A4 Wasted Time4:55 B1 Wasted Time (Reprise)1:22 B2 Victim of Love4:11 B3 Pretty Maids All in a Row4:05 B4 Try and Love Again5:10 B5 The Last Resort7:25 Total length: 43:28