Released: 1982
Tracks: Hotel California; Heartache Tonight; Seven Bridges Road; Victim of Love; The Sad Café; Life in the Fast Lane; I Can’t Tell You Why; New Kid in Town; The Long Run; After the Thrill is Gone
Best track: Seven Bridges Road, maybe Hotel California
Tracks to skip: Heartache Tonight, Victim of Love, Life in the Fast Lane, I Can’t Tell You Why, New Kid in Town
In making my notes for the album as the songs played along I found myself making references to the lyrics. Stuff like: Lyrics to seven bridges are dumb…horrible lyrics on victim of love…What’s up with the lyrics on here? It’s true. I think for the most part the lyrics on here are generally bad. Some awful rhymes on here too. So, this is the Eagles second Greatest Hits album. Or, Hotel California plus a bunch of other songs that range from decent to vomit-inducing. I probably said this on the review for GH1, but I’m over all of this stuff. I guess I liked it when I was a kid (why???) and I bought these, but now I really just don’t like it. And you know, I try, I really do. It’s not like I go into these reviews thinking “oh, I hate this album, I’m gonna pan it!” No, I’d actually like to enjoy this. If you don’t get enjoyment out of music, then what’s the point? And I mean enjoyment on any level.
So, yes, most of the songs are dreadful. I think the worst is I Can’t Tell You Why. It certainly competes with Witchy Woman for Worst Eagles Song Ever. So bad! 10 tracks here, 5 of them I certainly skip and the other 5 are decent. Hotel California gets points for the guitar solos, which continue to be well-written and well-played. The rest of the song, eh, it’s decent. Not the greatest, but it doesn’t suck. Seven Bridges Road has the second-coolest part on this album and that’s the harmony vocals at the beginning and end. Like I said, the lyrics on this one are DUMB, but everything else sounds good. Sad Café, same thing: pretty good song, bad lyrics and an *extremely* out of place sax solo at the end. What is that about? The Long Run has some decent moments, but it’s still nothing too special. After the Thrill is Gone is better, but not by a whole lot. As for all the songs I skip, I do skip them for a reason. I especially don’t care for the country-tinged ones like Heartache Tonight and Life in the Fast Lane. These songs are just really bad.
So, my professional opinion (yeah right) of this album is not very positive. They have released an Eagles Greatest Hits that has all of the songs from GH1 & GH2, plus another disc of songs that would suffice if you were really interested. Honestly though, 1 disc is more than enough. I don’t think I could fill an album side with Eagles songs I really love. This album is a serious let down from the first Greatest Hits. They really did lose steam in the later half of the 70’s and this album clearly shows it. There’s a reason why the first GH has sold millions and millions of copies and this one hasn’t. I don’t think too highly of the first one anyway, but this is definitely worse.
Rating: 63
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