Rolling Stone<\/i> reported in 2016 that, when Glenn Frey and the Eagles turned in their sophomore effort Desperado<\/i>, Jerry Greenberg of Atlantic Records declared, \u201cJeez, they\u2019ve made a fucking cowboy album!\u201d<\/p>\n
Apparently, Mr. Greenberg hadn\u2019t paid attention to their first album or where the group came from. The Eagles were one of the proponents of LA country rock, so making an album that was heavy on the Western motif (but hardly a country album) shouldn\u2019t have been a surprise to anyone. Building on the success of their debut effort, there might have been precious few songs that were single material on this one, but it did solidify the Eagles as a band.<\/p>\n
This album is best known for two songs\u2014one of which was never formally released as a single. That would be \u201cDesperado,\u201d a track that has been covered ad nauseam by other artists, but has a gentle feel to it delivered lovingly by the band and topped perfectly by Don Henley\u2019s vocals. When it\u2019s heard in its natural album setting, it fits well.<\/p>\n
The only single, \u201cTequila Sunrise,\u201d isn\u2019t the strongest track on the disc, surprisingly, but it\u2019s still fairly good. A better choice might have been \u201cOut Of Control,\u201d which would have dispersed any misgivings about Desperado<\/i> being a country or cowboy album.<\/p>\n
Not that there isn\u2019t a country-fried flavor to many of the songs on Desperado<\/i>, with \u201cDoolin\u2019 Dalton\u201d (which gets not one, but two partial reprises through the course of the album\u2014kinda wonder whether that was really necessary) and \u201cBitter Creek\u201d being prime examples. But their presence should not have been surprising, as instrumentation like banjo was present on their self-titled effort. Very much a product of their upbringing, the genre fits the Eagles perfectly on this disc.<\/p>\n
Some listeners might shy away from Desperado<\/i> simply because there are only two very well-known songs on the disc. But to do so is to do both themselves and the album a disservice, as it\u2019s a key element that was needed for the eventual transition of the Eagles from country-pop to AOR (though they\u2019d never truly lose the storytelling aspect of country-pop in their songwriting).<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an intriguing listen\u2014and, at just under 36 minutes, another short one\u2014but there\u2019s plenty on Desperado<\/i> awaiting rediscovery that makes giving it a chance in the CD deck well worth your time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5764],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-46639","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-eagles","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46639"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}