The one album Don Henley thought fans would hate
The art of selling out has never really been a bad word for Don Henley.
There were plenty of opportunities for Eagles to become one of the biggest bands in the world, and it’s not like he subscribed to the punk rock mentality of playing down his celebrity status. Every member of the California rockers wanted to be in one of the greatest American bands ever, but there were bound to be a few lines that were crossed along the way between being a rock star and wanting to make a lot of money.
Then again, every single band has to make that decision at least once in their lives. Even when someone like Nirvana became one of the biggest names in music and shifted the cultural landscape overnight, Kurt Cobain was already questioning whether he made the right decision by letting Nevermind get produced so slickly. But that extra polish on any record was never a bad thing as far as Henley was concerned.
The extra sheen on many of their albums wasn’t done by accident, and when you look at their first couple of records, you can see them slowly inching further towards perfection. ‘Take it Easy’ and ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’ were decent enough country rockers that have stood the test of time, but there were also albums like Desperado that were pretty much dead on arrival because the band had the gall to release a concept album.
Not every fairweather fan is ready for that, but by the time they finished up One of These Nights, they had walked away with some of their biggest hits like the title track and ‘Take it to the Limit’. No one would have been complaining, but when you have that level of success off of one album, any musician suddenly gets a burden on their shoulder, wondering about what the next album was going to be like.
But Henley and Glenn Frey had already started putting together their masterpiece before they even came off the road. They had a shot in the arm with Joe Walsh joining the group, and with the first few songs taking shape for their next project, it seemed like all the stars were aligning in their favour to make a perfect record. Yes sir, their next project was going to be the true apex of their career with songs everyone would sing along to. Just one caveat: it happened to be a greatest-hits album.
While the band were more than happy to keep plowing through on Hotel California, the runaway success of their greatest hits was something Henley thought fans would hate them for, saying, “Let us say that we aren’t really advocates of ‘Greatest Hits’ albums. They are more or less a ploy by the record company to get free sales. They don’t have to spend any money to make them and they get a lot of money back. We got a couple of hate letters after the Greatest Hits album came out that said we were selling out… they said that us and Steve Miller were the last bands who were holding off selling out this way.”
Then again, they couldn’t have asked for a better way to set up their magnum opus, either. Everyone was still catching up on the songs that made them famous over the past few years, but having a new record that ran like another greatest-hits record was almost too perfect, especially with tunes like ‘Hotel California’ and ‘Life in the Fast Lane’ achieving their own legendary status almost immediately upon release.
It wasn’t going to earn them any praise from the purists that wanted to hear the albums first, but, really, would anyone be complaining when they have one of the highest-selling records of all time? Sure, they might not have wanted the record to go out when making Hotel California, but I’m sure all of them can cry over their mountain of platinum album certifications.
