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Hotel California by Eagles (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Hotel California
  • Group name: Eagles
  • Year: 1976
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Asylum Records
  • Collection: Selman
  • Distinguishing characteristics:
    • Scratched into side one of LP: 7E 1084 A RE SP A-3 “IS IT 6 O’CLOCK YET?”
    • Scratched into side two of LP: 7E 1084 B-1 RE SP 1-2 “V.O.L. IS FIVE PIECE LIVE”
  • Buy it on Amazon: $22.96

Hotel California by Eagles

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’m pretty familiar with the song Hotel California, but I’m not sure that I’ll recognize any of the other songs.

Previous Eagles records that I’ve reviewed:

What I expected

Rock, soft rock, maybe some country.

What it was actually like

These songs mostly seemed to have a very produced sound, and many were too slow, like a tenth grader double spacing his paragraph-long essay and using a 13 point font to stretch it to “two pages.”

Pretty Maids All in a Row was an example of a song that was far too slow, and another was The Last Resort, the final song on the record, that seemed to go on forever.

Wasted Time was an easy listening song that kind of reminded me of Bryan Adams, and Wasted Time (Reprise) introduced a weird orchestral sound that was brought back on The Last Resort.

New Kid in Town had a bit of a country sound, and Try and Love Again was country rock, with vocals that sounded sort of like Neil Young; it was also too slow, but in this case still pretty decent.

Life in the Fast Lane was one that I recognized and never would have thought was an Eagles song (in fact, I never would have thought it was from the mid 1970s – I probably would have guessed the mid 1980s). Like Victim of Love, it was really more of a hard rock song. The latter made me think of Kiss.

As for the title track Hotel California: does it deserve to be one of the most popular, most recognizable and best selling songs of all time? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a great song. It is a great song that’s very carefully put together, with strong vocals and bass line and electric guitar. I had not heard it in a long time and was impressed by how much it delighted me to hear it. I might have made it the last song on the record instead of the first, though.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

One Man Dog by James Taylor (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: One Man Dog
  • Artist name: James Taylor
  • Year: 1972
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Warner Records Inc.
  • Distinguishing characteristics: “SIDE 1 – CUT 2 SKIPS” written in blue ink on back of album
  • Collection: Selman
  • Buy it on Amazon: $145.55

One Man Dog by James Taylor

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never heard this record before, but it will be the fourth by James Taylor that I review. The previous three were:

What I expected

One curious thing about One Man Dog is that I’m not sure if it’s meant to be interpreted more as “one-man dog” (ie, a dog that is only for one man) or as “one man-dog” (ie, a single creature that is part man, part dog). The album art features one man (James Taylor) and one dog, in a boat, but unfortunately that does not do much to clear the matter up.

What it was actually like

These songs were all really short, and there were 18 of them.

One Man Parade was all over the place, and it sounded like every few seconds there was some other instrument that was jumping in, but the instrument that I disliked the most was the bongo drums, which made an appearance on several other songs.

Fool for You and Woh, Don’t You Know both hinted at funk, which I thought was a pretty interesting sound on a soft rock record.

Chili Dog had a bit of a country vibe, but was still basically soft rock (also, I love chili dogs), while Dance was closer to country, with nice fiddle and steel guitar.

Instrumental I sounded very Renaissance.

One Morning in May was a totally serviceable version of a traditional song, but I like this bluegrass version a lot better.

The only song on the record that I strongly disliked was Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight. In fact, I was neutral on it until its horrible saxophone solo. Fanfare was the record’s most musically expansive song, with brass and choral accompaniment, and it also had saxophone, but its saxophone made sense and worked well.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

Grease: The Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Grease: The Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture
  • Artist name: Various, including Frankie Valli, John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Frankie Avalon, Stockard Channing, Jeff Conaway, Cindy Bullens, Sha-Na-Na, Louis St. Louis
  • Year: 1978
  • Number of discs: two
  • Label: RSO Records
  • Collection: Selman
  • Distinguishing characteristics:
    • Scratched into side 1 of LP: K-9967 RS-2-4002 AS GD1
    • Scratched into side 2 of LP: K-9970 RS-2-4002 BS GD2
    • Scratched into side 3 of LP: K-9971 RS-2-4002 CS GD1
    • Scratched into side 4 of LP: K-9974 RS-2-4002 DS GD2
  • Buy it on Amazon: $100.00

Grease: The Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never seen Grease the movie, but I do expect to recognize several of these songs.

What I expected

My first reaction when I saw that this record was next: “Oh. The Grease soundtrack. John Travolta. Great.”

My second reaction was: “Wait a minute, there are actually a lot of Sha Na Na[1] songs on this record. I think it might actually be pretty good.”

My third reaction: “‘Written & Produced by Barry Gibb.’ Oh no.”

What it was actually like

I never really thought of the term “fauxldies” until now to describe Sha Na Na, but a lot of this record was just that. Fortunately, I approve.

The Sha Na Na set was from the end of side two through the end of side three, and here are their songs in order of excellence:

  1. Hound Dog
  2. Blue Moon, which has come up twice recently (The Rodgers and Hart Songbook by Ella Fitzgerald and The Muppet Show)
  3. Rock n’ Roll Is Here to Stay
  4. Those Magic Changes
  5. Born to Hand Jive, which was way too long
  6. Tears on My Pillow

The end of side three and beginning of side four also had more of these “fauxldies,” though generally not as good as Sha Na Na’s. Of them, I liked Mooning, Freddy, My Love and Rock n’ Roll Party Queen the best. We Go Together was also great: kind of pure sugar, and it made me wonder why there is not more music like that. And in a very small way, it reminded me of Shama Lama Ding Dong (which I just learned was covered by John “Cougar” Mellencamp; listen at your own risk).

The disco part of the record was not as extensive as I worried: just the title track Grease and the closing track Grease (Reprise), which were terrible, and You’re the One That I Want, which I recognized, which was nowhere near as bad as it could have been.

The record’s worst song, There Are Worse Things I Could Do, wasn’t disco at al. It was just boring and had an awful saxophone part.

The other two that I recognized were Summer Nights, a sappy duet, and Greased Lightnin’ – another one that I knew and that played with a retro sound – though I appreciated the electric guitar.

Sometimes the “fauxldies” style got really boring and could not be saved by doo wop, such as with Beauty School Dropout and It’s Raining on Prom Night.

And given that it was the late 1970s, of course there was some bad easy listening included as well: Hopelessly Devoted to You and Sandy.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

References

References
↑1 Stylized as “Sha-Na-Na”

Phoebe Snow (1974) (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Phoebe Snow
  • Artist name: Phoebe Snow
  • Year: 1974
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Shelter Records
  • Collection: Selman
  • Distinguishing characteristics:
    • Scratched into side one of LP: 1-MCA 456 WI
    • Scratched into side two of LP: 2-MCA 457 WI
  • Buy it on Amazon: $15.95

Phoebe Snow (1974)

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I have never heard of Phoebe Snow or this record.

What I expected

Two of the song names have “blues” in the titles, so maybe blues?

My mother described Phoebe Snow’s voice as “different,” and said that my father might have also owned this record, but he denied it.

What it was actually like

“Different” was about right. It wasn’t exactly unique, but it was definitely an unusual kind of blues vocals.

The two best songs on the record by far were the first and the last.

It opened with Let The Good Times Roll, a cover of Sam Cooke’s Good Times, and I was extremely impressed at how… different… it was – I could barely recognize it. It was very bluesy, and I could almost smell the cigarette smoke and whiskey in the room.

And then it closed with No Show Tonight, a lively and outstanding song with a great bass line, strong percussion and adventurous vocals.

Besides those two greats, I also liked I Don’t Want the Night to End, which was more jazzy, and Either or Both, which had more of a folk style.

Several of the songs had saxophone, and though this was not a rock record and therefore did not violate my saxophone rule, I hated the saxophone on Poetry Man, which was a boring song to begin with, and the saxophone on It Must Be Sunday ruined the song by competing and conflicting with her voice.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

Desperado by the Eagles (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Desperado
  • Group name: the Eagles
  • Year: 1973
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Asylum Records
  • Collection: Selman
  • Distinguishing characteristics:
    • Scratched into side one of LP: EAGLES SIDE ONE STEREO ST-AS-732813 – A
    • Scratched into side two of LP: EAGLES Side Two STEREO ST-AS-732814 – E
  • Buy it on Amazon: $23.99

Desperado by the Eagles

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never heard this record before, but I think I might know the title track Desperado, which was covered on Don’t Cry Now by Linda Ronstadt.

Previous Eagles records that I’ve reviewed:

What I expected

The “desperado” is an archetype of the American west, so I’m guessing country and western music, but more western than country.

What it was actually like

I did recognize Desperado, and this was the first time that I had ever listened to it closely, so the first time I ever realized that it’s actually not a good song and has no redeeming value. I suspected that people might only like it because of the rhythmic delivery of the single word “desperado.”

Doolin-Dalton was a vaguely Neil Young-like country rock song with some harmonica, but it was pretty boring.

Not surprisingly, then, Doolin-Dalton/Desperado (Reprise) was also pretty bad. In particular, the reprise version of Desperado was quite worse than the first version.

On the other hand, the very short instrumental version of Doolin-Dalton was a pretty great bluegrass song, the best track on the record, while Twenty-One was more of a bluegrass-style rock song that I thought was pretty good, with excellent banjo and slide guitar, but I wonder did what it would have sounded like without the drums.

Out of Control was much more of a hard rock or stadium rock song, and at first I found it tolerable, but then I imagined people listening to it and making air guitars, which made me want to stop listening.

Tequila Sunrise should have been faster, but at least its folk rock style made me think of California.

The ending part of Outlaw Man, after a pacing change, was fast and good.

Saturday Night and Certain Kind of Fool were both kind of empty, but the latter had a similar rhythmic delivery to Desperado.

The weirdest song on the record was Bitter Creek, which sounded like one of the rejects from a CSNY record, and which seemed to be an ode to peyote[1]. It had a good acoustic guitar solo at the end.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

References

References
↑1 “Bitter” does not even begin to describe its taste. It is the worst taste on earth, and probably the worst taste in several solar systems. Its taste is “death.”