UNNECESSARY DOUBLE ALBUMS: We Missed You, But Not That Much

The Eagles' catalogue is both slimmer and deeper than most realize. Slimmer because for all their blockbuster success in the 1970s, they managed to squeeze out only six albums. Give me a break; Neil Young makes six albums on his day off. But if you've heard only the half dozen songs classic rock radio has made us sick of, you're missing out. You owe it to yourself to hear Hotel California and On the Border in their entirety.

For 28 years, the Eagles didn't make a studio album. They were too busy with solo careers, families, and firing Don Felder to even bother. Then finally, in 2007, the fifth Eagles lineup gave us the seventh Eagles album. Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmit managed to complete Long Road Out of Eden without killing each other, and the album went multiplatinum in no time, despite being available only at Wal-Mart and on the band's website. The album's long, painful birth seemed to have been worth it.

The thing about spending that much time on an album, though, is that you can't bear to throw anything away. Long Road Out of Eden groans under the weight of 20 tracks. I don't care how long we had to wait for it, that's too many. Henley has said he believes the record would have been better if they'd spent another 6 months polishing it, but I can't imagine that's the problem. If anything, someone should have shut down the sessions early and forced these notorious perfectionists to just get the damn thing out already.

Henley blames the album's length on his own benevolence; he and co-founder Frey just didn't have the heart to cut any tracks by their employees Schmit and Walsh. What Don doesn't tell you is that Schmit and Walsh contribute only two songs each, and they're all pretty good. I'm afraid Henley and Frey, the only two original members left, are to blame for Long Road Out of Eden's sprawl.

Repetition is their undoing. Henley doesn't get one track to rant about the state of the world, he gets three, including the ten-minute(!) title track. Frey isn't allowed just one of his sappy/sweet ballads, he has five. Prune the album's few weakest tracks, and you're left with a more democratic selection of very strong material. Most importantly, an uneven double album becomes a very strong single disc.

The highlights, though, are worthy on the band's legacy. Henley's thoughtful "Waiting in the Weeds" features some of the most gorgeous and complex harmonies the Eagles have ever attempted. J.D. Souther's "How Long" makes for a hell of a single, and "No More Cloudy Days" plays to Frey's strengths as a melodist. Altogether, Long Road Out of Eden makes for a better valedictory than 1979's tired cokefest The Long Run. We're glad the old boys came back for another round, but they didn't need to stay until closing time.

TODAY'S RECOMMENDATION: "Waiting in the Weeds" by Eagles
AVAILABLE ON: Long Road Out of Eden