Why the Eagles sounded way too “predictable”, according to Bob Dylan
The best artists of all time learned a long time ago how to give the people what they want. Any other band could spend years honing their craft trying to find that special formula for what makes them great, but Bob Dylan knew how to keep the people guessing whenever he put out a new project.
Because looking at Dylan’s writing, he stands only second to someone like David Bowie in terms of musical reinvention. While it’s a lot more nuanced than ‘The Starman’s flirtations with every single genre that he ever got his hands on, Dylan’s changes had a lot more to do with the lyrical themes of his records. Highway 61 Revisited and Blood on the Tracks are both albums centred around Dylan and his acoustic, and yet they could not be further away in terms of their tone.
And even when Dylan wasn’t changing his lyrical style, the beauty of his records was about capturing a raw feeling whenever he played. Although his born-again period in the 1980s would always be an acquired taste for fans, it was important for Dylan to show the people his worn-out voice as much as his clean singing. He wasn’t looking to impress anyone with his musical form, but that’s what makes albums like Time Out of Mind so intriguing to revisit.
But whereas Dylan took the acoustic foundation of his songs and ran with it, that didn’t stop the rest of the rock world from riding his coattails. The entire premise of folk-rock was born out of him playing ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’, but as soon as bands like The Byrds started making waves, Dylan had created an empire beneath him, and the Eagles were among the biggest byproducts of that scene.
Sure, bands like Crosby, Stills, and Nash had more interesting experiments, but it was hard to find any duds on an Eagles project. Don Henley and Glenn Frey made sure to keep every single song of a certain quality, but while that satisfied the people watching the charts, Dylan could only see a bunch of musical wallpaper after a while.
Despite him liking more than a few Eagles tunes, Dylan felt that the band fell into a holding pattern way too quickly, saying, “A lot of records you hear it’s all filled up. Every note is already there for you. Have you ever listened to an Eagles record? One thing about the Eagles, the songs are good and all that but when you listen to the Eagles, every note is predictable. You know exactly what it’s going to be before it’s even there.”
While Dylan did think fondly enough of the band to namecheck them later down the road, it’s not like he’s far off from the truth, either. It’s fairly impressive to hear the band still in fine form to this day, but looking at the way that they play off each other at every concert, it’s hard to listen to their concert and not feel like you’re getting a slightly excited version of what you were listening to at home.
But that just speaks to the kind of band that Henley wanted the Eagles to be. There was no room for filler if they tried, and if they wanted to be the biggest and best band the world had ever seen, they were going to work their ass off until projects like Hotel California sounded absolutely perfect.
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