The solo career that Eagles co-founder Glenn Frey navigated between the band\u2019s 1980 breakup and 1994 reunion doesn\u2019t get a lot of attention, possibly because the man himself never seemed to give it much of his own. Aside from a handful of memorable movie and TV soundtrack placements, his efforts during this period seemed mostly half-hearted, an already-successful artist passing the time until something more interesting comes along.<\/p>\n
That said, Frey\u2019s solo debut No Fun Aloud<\/i>\u2014its title a snarky commentary on the humorless final days of the Eagles\u2019 initial run\u2014does have its moments. Teaming with old pal\/songwriting pro Jack Tempchin, Frey turns out a passable set of tunes with a handful of notable highlights.<\/p>\n
If there was a real surprise here, it lay in the genre Frey gravitated toward as a solo artist\u2014not rock, not country, but a kind of lounge-y, late-night-at-the-club white soul with horns. It\u2019s an unexpected vibe, but one that Frey leans into, singing these tunes with a commitment that was too often missing from later solo albums.<\/p>\n
No Fun Aloud<\/i> offers a surprise right off the bat: saxophone leading the way on kickoff cut and first single \u201cI Found Somebody,\u201d as it does on several tunes here. It\u2019s an easy-going, upbeat number with a sing-along chorus hook that reached #31 on the charts. Frey smartly segues directly into second single \u201cThe One You Love,\u201d a yearning ballad that hit #15 on the Billboard Hot 100 and made it all the way the #2 on the Adult Contemporary chart.<\/p>\n
From there, things get sketchier. \u201cPartytown\u201d is exactly what it sounds like, a 2:57 horn-decorated hoot with a raucous chorus answering Frey\u2019s calls… that you really don\u2019t need to hear more than once. Tempchin\u2019s \u201cI Volunteer\u201d is sweet, sincere, and slight. Both are eclipsed by a snappy, exuberant cover of Johnnie Taylor\u2019s r&b\/gospel shouter \u201cI\u2019ve Been Born Again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Side Two opens with an even more exuberant and horn-heavy cover of \u201cSea Cruise,\u201d a late \u201950s novelty; it\u2019s a blast, even if it\u2019s basically a 2:36 vamp with Frey veering into 1968 Elvis territory on the vocals. From there the album fades steadily into filler-land; the best of the bunch is Frey\u2019s co-write with Bob Seger, the somber, string-drenched ballad \u201cThat Girl,\u201d but even it feels a touch predictable. The rock-ier \u201cAll Those Lies\u201d and \u201cDon\u2019t Give Up\u201d both manifest the dark energy of Long Run<\/i>-era Eagles, while in between, \u201cShe Can\u2019t Let Go\u201d is a rewrite of a dozen dusty Frey-Tempchin weepers before it.<\/p>\n
Frey handles most of the guitars and keyboards and co-produces, aided and abetted by co-writer Tempchin, co-producer Allen Blazek, and a small herd of session players. The sound is crisp and professional, but the music only occasionally exceeds that mark.<\/p>\n
The thing about Glenn Frey\u2019s solo career was that he didn\u2019t really need one, and only once in a while seemed to want one. By the time Travis Tritt reconvened the Eagles for a video shoot in 1993, there was really no reason left for Frey to say no to a reunion of the band he had co-founded and with whom he had experienced tremendous success. He didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":53555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[11285],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-53416","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-glenn-frey","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/53416","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53416"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/53416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53556,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/53416\/revisions\/53556"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53416"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=53416"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=53416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}