The Eagles: Desperado (Asylum)
Author: Charles Shaar Murray
Publication: NME
Date: May 26, 1973
It is arguable that the test of a fine example of any genre is to consider the extent to which it transcends its category. Our own particular sphere of interest – rock'n'roll – is subject to a considerable number of classifications and sub-classifications, and one particular school that I've always found particularly resistible is that sugary confection generally referred to as country rock.
Nevertheless, I love the Eagles' first album very dearly, and its successor no less. The Eagles are, for what it's worth, currently producing the finest music ever to emerge from the country rock school, possibly excepting that of the Band. Desperado is a country rock album for people who don't like country rock. Or to put it another way, it's an album of exceptionally beautiful songs, sung, played, arranged and produced with an exquisite blend of technical precision and emotional involvement. Nothing on it communicates as instantly or as perfectly as ‘Take It Easy’ on the first album, but it's far more satisfying as a whole.
The album opens with ‘Doolin-Dalton’, written by band members Glenn Frey and Don Henley with the assistance of fellow Asylum-dwellers John David Souther and Jackson Browne, and it also crops up in a short instrumental version near the beginning of the second side as well as serving as the album's penultimate song. It's companion piece is the title cut, which ends both sides. They're both intensely melancholic, lyrical gun-fighter ballads, and they're admirably offset by the brighter feel of numbers like ‘Out Of Control’, a rockanrollin' bitch which just manages to stay on the tough side of tasteful.
Around the album are dotted songs like ‘Outlaw Man’, written by David Blue, and ‘Tequila Sunrise’, which has to be one of the nicest songs ever to be named after a drink.
The point about Desperado is that it has enabled the Eagles to emphasise the strong points of the area of music that they have chosen to work in, and to avoid totally the very dangerous pitfalls that have hamstrung many of their more famous colleagues – like CSN & Y. It's only on the cover that they falter and allow themselves to get hokey, all stubble and L.A. cowboy togs, but then it would be complete impossible for any band to be 100 per cent free of affectation. Listen to the Eagles, and glory in them. In their own understated way, they're becoming one of the most rewarding and worthwhile groups in the world.