Hummm...good one. You have, best albums: Fleetwood Mac Rmours Tusk Tango In The Night vs One Of These Nights Hotel California The Long Run Song-wise, The Eagles take it. Live, I´ve never seen either.
Missed this one. Grew up with the folks listening to both of these. hard to pick. I tend to listen to one as much as the other. I think the Eagles are all round better musicians, but Fleetwood Mac (later variant) did create some very strong pop songs based on shagging one another. One thing though, both bands are produced to within inches of their lives. Rumours is a massively produced album, so many overdubs it's hard to count. I think Buckingham complained because he ran outta tracks, and they had like a billion. Not enough obviously. I also read that they laid down like 3 tracks in the studio and the rest were overdubs months later. No spontaneity, a crafted, curated, produced album that was subsequently practiced and learned for live performances. Tons of chorus and reverb. Nothing organic there. I don't know as much about the Eagles, but I get the sense it's probably similar. I think Eagles were a better live band, unsurprisingly.
Also., Nicks was banging Joe Walsh at one stage and to this day calls him her "one true love". Joe's reaction to this is to laugh and say "err that's nice". KO1 Eagles.
It's more like they were shooting up meth Anyway I reckon it;s because they knew they weren't the best musos so had to compensate with millions of overdubs
Crystal Meth? I thought only bums got into that. I know cocaine and then herion had just started to become rife in Los Angeles a couple of years earlier. The myths and legends abound, though - I doubt they spent as much on drugs as everyone says...the McVies were more champagne drinkers than snorters... Regardless, Rumours is a great album. Good documentary about it:
Rumours is vanilla soap opera El Lay horseshit An extremely perceptive reviewer on RateYourMusic had this to say about it: "Were it not for Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks would be bahhhing away in a coffeehouse somewhere with an autoharp. I hold him responsible. This is the Jerry Maguire of pop albums. Inexplicably beloved by millions yet silently detested by just as many people. As I did with the Eagles, I'm giving some credit for succeeding in producing highly competent, easily digested soap opera pop music. That's as far as I'll go. At least the previous album had that stupid but totally catchy Christine McVie tune "Say That You Love Me" which I am loathe to admit I genuinely enjoy. All she hits out with here is the female equivalent of Marty Balin on "You Make Loving Fun". Puke. Buckingham, the "genius" largely responsible for Fleetwood Mac version 17.0's new, cash-printing sound contributes the angry wimp vengeance anthem "Go Your Own Way" (you should've said that to her in 1974, dummy). The whole lot of them bare their millionaire souls on the "Days Of Our Lives - Cocaine Edition" group melodrama "The Chain". Tens of millions of people were somehow riveted. In response, critics declared this a masterpiece. Just as hollow and awful as Hotel California except Buckingham can't deliver the guitar payoffs so this loses half a star by comparison." The reviewer also offered this decisive assessment of Hotel California, it rings true with bell-like clarity: "Supposedly the most substantial artistic statement of this band's career, Hotel California has been in recent years elevated to untouchable classic status in popular criticism circles. I'd consider that a nod to its monstrous sales figures rather than to any realistic appraisal of its content. The title track has become one of the world's best known songs but when you get right down to it, the meat of the song is its justifiably celebrated guitar solo. Don Felder's stinging opening sequence is sublime and the trade-offs between he and Joe Walsh are immensely pleasurable. The repeated harmony figures on the fade-out are a bit dramatic but that drama is, in my opinion the very reason the song is so popular rather than Henley's turgid prose. The album is loaded with wonderful guitar playing, of course. The last of their "country" songs, "New Kid In Town" is one of their most well-executed and arranged and features more lovely, understated guitar from Felder, a nice melody and a catchy chorus. Naturally, the lyrics are a turn-off. "Life In The Fast Lane" and "Victim Of Love" once again illustrate that even with two ace rock 'n' roll guitarists like Felder and Walsh in the fold, the Eagles are utterly incapable of convincingly rocking out mainly because Henley is too wooden a drummer and because for Frey, EVERYTHING is a calculated put-on. The insistence on pretty vocal harmonies saturating everything doesn't help. Walsh's "Pretty Maids" is saccharine and boring but his mush-mouthed high tenor voice adds a welcome unpredictability and I like to think it made Henley and Frey uncomfortable. Meisner's "Try and Love Again" is sort of charming during the verses (once again there is wonderful, empathetic guitar playing from Felder and Walsh) but the chorus is horrendous. What I imagine Henley and Frey thought would be the big statements on this record, "Wasted Time" and "The Last Resort" are just execrable. The former is the kind of groove deprived, self-absorbed break-up lecture that was an Eagles trademark while the latter is a despicable, pretentious, preachy and purposefully lugubrious dirge saturated in movie soundtrack orchestration. So how can an album like this be elevated to Pepper, Exile, Pet Sounds status? The same way Fleetwood Mac's Rumoursdid- by selling a zillion copies. Further proof of the death of critical integrity."
Anyone using words like 'execrable' and 'lugubrious' is trying desperately to sound smarter than they really are. Gotta laugh at some self important bag of dicks who actually believes his opinions are worth a damn. TFK
Only people who get over-emotional and invested in music. Rumours and Hotel California are great, quintessential albums of that era.
Rumours: of the 11 tracks maybe 2-3 are 'just okay'...the rest are great. I've no idea why anyone who has varied tastes and likes music would hate this album. That guy's review is lies.
Eaglesplaining: I admit Hotel California isn't their quintessential album cos Eagles, On The Border and One Of These Nights are just as good....just not as slick.
No. True story. Good one, too. Back in the 70s when we´d go on vacation, we often drove around in a customsed van. My step-dad and Mum liked it and had it one of those old cassettes: That Summer, it got played to death! The other alternatives we had were: and the best of all: (still got that tape, too)
Wait, I tell a lie...they also had Backless by Eric Clapton Two Days Away by Elkie Brooks and a compilation of the hits that year...
I had that on tape back in the day but for the life of me can't remember anything other than Tulsa Time. TFK
