Three years in the making (which was considered an eternity in the '70s),
the Eagles' follow-up to the massively successful, critically acclaimed
Hotel California was a major disappointment, even though it sold several million copies and threw off three hit singles. Those singles, in fact, provide some insight into the record. "Heartache Tonight" was an old-fashioned rock & roll song sung by
Glenn Frey, while "I Can't Tell You Why" was a delicate ballad by
Timothy B. Schmit, the band's newest member. Only "The Long Run," a conventional pop/rock tune with a Stax Records R&B flavor, bore the stamp and vocal signature of
Don Henley, who had largely taken the reins of the band on
Hotel California.
Henley also dominated
The Long Run, getting co-writing credits on nine of the ten songs, singing five lead vocals, and sharing another two with
Frey. This time around, however,
Henley's contributions were for the most part painfully slight. Only "The Long Run" and the regret-filled closing song, "The Sad Café," showed any of his usual craftsmanship. The album was dominated by second-rank songs like "The Disco Strangler," "King of Hollywood," and "Teenage Jail" that sounded like they couldn't have taken three hours much less three years to come up with. (
Joe Walsh's "In the City" was up to his usual standard, but it may not even have been an
Eagles recording, having appeared months earlier on the soundtrack to The Warriors, where it was credited as a
Walsh solo track.) Amazingly,
The Long Run reportedly was planned as a double album before being truncated to a single disc. If these were the keepers, what could the rejects have sounded like? [Elektra issued an exclusive edition in 2007.] ~ William Ruhlmann