Eagles - Hotel California

Here's one that might surprise you. I've never heard the entire Hotel California album. I mean, yes i've heard every song on it, but no i've never experienced the brain damaging oscillation between Rock Rock and Country Rock from start to finish. 

I'm predisposed to dislike these kind of Faro Shuffled schizophrenic albums, but i'll accept it here because the concept is clearly various rooms inside the eponymously fictional metaphor that is the Hotel California. I do, however, very much like the orchestral reprise of Wasted Love to start Side B. If absolutely nothing else, this is an album designed to live on a record.

Now, there are a couple reasons why my standard dislikes aren't relevant here. First, i don't know if you're familiar with just how insane a thing it was that Joe Walsh joined Eagles. Like, they literally argued back and forth about it before finally deciding it was too good to not let him Joe Walsh all over everything. Second, in terms of songwriting, Eagles were remarkably democratic, and literally everyone gets a turn. Again, makes total sense for the concept, you can't put an unattended piano in the lobby and expect everyone not to play whatever they want when they walk by.

But that's not the real story of Hotel California. The real story of Hotel California is that to commemorate 200 years of being a country called The United States, Eagles felt obliged to make an album that literally says "we've had a good 200 year run, but look around you, this is garbage, we're gonna need to tone it down a couple notches if we want to see another 200. But nope, 2023 and we're fighting about self check outs and bagging your own groceries like we did back in the 80s. Yes, i routinely bagged the family groceries as a little kid.

Anywhozles, the point is that there is an exception to every rule, and all rules abandon ship when you let Joe Walsh join in. He's the best kind of lunatic.