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  #16  
Old 11-06-2007, 09:24 PM
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The album is a great bargain at $13.88, and it's got a lot of great harmonies throughout. The song "Somebody" was just in time for Halloween. Two here on the whole deal.

Yes, Lee, I read something similar the other day:

LIFE IN THE FAST LANE: Unconfirmed estimates have The Eagles selling more than 700k albums of their double-CD Long Road Out of Eden at stateside Wal-Marts, where it has been available on an exclusive basis since last Tuesday's day of release. That would be more than enough to turn back Britney Spears' Blackout on the Album chart, if it were eligible, which it is not since it is being carried by just a single retailer.


There was a great article in the LA Times

Geoff Boucher, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 6, 2007

The Eagles' last flight?

The new album is a hit at Wal-Mart, but the band may be nearing the end of the road.

THE long run of the Eagles began with a sad, funny little gig at the Westlake School for Girls and nights spent in the dingy confines of the Troubadour, where their crystalline harmony -- at least on stage -- would define the world-famous "Southern California sound."

Now, in fact, it's hard to think of Los Angeles without thinking of the music of the Eagles and it's impossible to consider the band without L.A. as a frame.

The L.A. story of the Eagles is on the first page of the final chapter. The band has a new album in stores for the first time in 28 years and the members seem to know their own swan song when they hear it.

"It was painful birth," lead guitarist Joe Walsh said of the struggle to finish "Long Road Out of Eden," which ended up as a double album. "I can't think we have another one in us. I really can't."

When the new edition of the Billboard 200 chart is released Wednesday, it will show that the No. 1 album in America is "Blackout" from Britney Spears. But in reality, the bestselling album in the country over the last week was in fact "Eden" -- because it was sold exclusively through Wal-Mart stores and the veteran band's website, "Eden" is ineligible for the Billboard tally.

The first Eagles album since the Carter administration has a first-week total that looks to be about 700,000 copies, according to the band's manager, Irving Azoff. That doubles the sales of the new Spears album and makes "Eden" one of the fastest-selling CDs of the year even though it was not released by anything resembling a traditional record label.

"I'm not even sure what the recording industry is anymore," said Don Henley, who with Glenn Frey is the most familiar voice in the Eagles. To add to the sense of strangeness, the iconic band finds its new music is getting its most significant radio airplay at country stations. Embracing that, the Eagles will perform Wednesday on the Country Music Assn. Awards on ABC, which, shockingly, will mark the first time the band has ever appeared on an awards broadcast.

In other words, if you think you are bewildered by the carnival fun house that is the music industry of 2007, try being a member of the Eagles.

"I couldn't tell you what a hit record is these days," said Frey with a shrug. He and Henley are the only founding members left from the days when the Eagles got their start as a backing band for Linda Ronstadt.

They went on to claim the bestselling album in the history of American music, "Their Greatest Hits, 1971-1975," which is creeping toward 30 million copies shipped to stores, according to the Recording Industry Assn. of America. But that titan status in the boom of the 1970s has given them a collective impatience with the wilting industry around them now. "I feel like I was part of Camelot," Frey said, "and it's not coming back."

"Eden" is an epic album (many critics, in fact, are saying it's too long, although the reviews have also been largely positive) and all four members -- Henley, Frey, Walsh and bassist Timothy B. Schmit -- get a turn in the spotlight. It's almost like they are taking their bows. The 20th and final song on "Eden" is a farewell tune, "Your World Now."

"It's a sort of a passing of the torch song, it's an adios song," Henley said. "It works on that level for our children and also on the band level."

Back to the nest

A few weeks ago, the Eagles were back at the Troubadour to sit down for an interview with "60 Minutes." Frey found the experience heartwarming -- and somewhat claustrophobic.

"It was like walking up to a house you used to live in and knocking on the door -- 'Do you mind if I came in and looked around?' " Frey said. "The place seemed so big to me once and they are really so small. I don't know what made the Troubadour feel like a giant place. Maybe it's because for us it was an open road."

Frey had come west from Detroit and was living in a shabby Echo Park apartment upstairs from a young songwriter named Jackson Browne. Frey would hitchhike to West Hollywood to soak in the pulsing scene at the Troubadour even though he was so broke he sometimes nursed one beer all night.

Another young singer in the scene was Henley, fresh from Texas, which he ditched after hearing "California Dreamin' " on the radio. Henley and Frey became roommates and part of Ronstadt's band, along with Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner. The four then went their own way, called themselves the Eagles and signed to a start-up label called Elektra Records. The label was run by a young manager named David Geffen.

They didn't have to wait long for fame. Their first album, "Eagles," yielded three hit singles: "Take It Easy," "Witchy Woman," and "Peaceful Easy Feeling."

"We came up," Henley said, "at a 45 degree angle." Their second album was the 1973 Old West concept album "Desperado." "We didn't have any hits on the second album," Henley said. "We made sure of that. We were afraid of commercialism. It was a bad thing." The years would disabuse the band of that notion.

The next three albums -- "On the Border," "One of These Nights" and "Hotel California" -- moved away from country twang and toward a dusty, Western sort of rock with more guitar sinew. A lot of that was due to the addition of guitarist Don Felder in 1974, and then Walsh in 1976. These changes were not made gently. Leadon, frustrated with the rock direction, announced his resignation by pouring a beer over Frey's head. Bass player Meisner, sick of the chaos, left in 1977. The Eagles recruited Schmit, who was stunned by the backstage strife.

"I thought at first it was just the normal tensions, you know, but these were really intense," Schmit said. "And then came that night in Long Beach."

The "Long Night in Wrong Beach," July 31, 1980, found the Eagles muttering dark threats to each other between the choruses. After the show, there was a brawl backstage. Schmit watched it all in shock. "I remember after weeks it sank in: This really was the end of it all."

Frey scoffed when asked if it was meaningful that what came together in Southern California also splintered here.

"Bands have arguments in Memphis, sometimes they have arguments in New York," he said testily. "Look, we disagreed all over the world."

Together again and again

The band members went their separate ways after their California divorce, but they came back together for the kids. The fan appetite and the big money it represented led to a 1994 reunion with a delicious name: the Hell Freezes Over Tour. The group was Henley, Frey, Walsh, Felder and Schmit and they broke records. A concert album (along with a few new studio tracks) sold 8.5 million copies and in 1998 they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The band circled the world twice on tour but there wasn't a lot of warmth backstage. The five members played together for the last time at Staples Center on New Year's Eve 1999.

A few weeks later, the band fired Felder and lawsuits followed. Felder claimed Henley and Frey wanted to hoard the band's money. The two founding members countered that band chemistry would improve without Felder. (There was a settlement but legal subplots remain; also, Hyperion Books in September cited "legal reasons" for the cancellation of Felder's tell-all memoir about the band's debauchery and bickering.)

The Felder affair reinforced the nagging image of the band's as a sour, mercenary collective. One way to measure the ubiquity of the Eagles is to gauge the bile they inspire. Punk rock was, to many observers, a direct response to the Eagles, and hating the Eagles even made it to theaters as a recurring gag in "The Big Lebowski." The new deal with Wal-Mart brought hectoring. Henley said the impetus for the deal was the environmental initiatives by the world's largest private employer but Frey said it was simple math: "If this is our last album, I wanted to sell as many copies as possible."

The band members stopped listening to the detractors years ago, but even they said they were ready to retire the franchise at the start of this decade.

"The old songs are part of the cultural lexicon and they have been good to us, but at some point singing them over and over just isn't any fun," Henley said.

In summer of 2001, the band was in Europe on tour when a funny thing happened. With Felder out of the picture, the band found that it was acting like, well, a band again.

"We didn't just play, we started hanging out again," Frey said. "It was a pleasure to go to sound check. There was a lot of fun and lot of laughs on the charter flights from country to country."

Steuart Smith, Felder's replacement, became "a catalyst, a source of rejuvenation for us," as Henley put it. The band decided to go into the studio and chose a fateful date: Sept. 11, 2001. World events seeped through the studio walls. One of the first pieces of music they worked on was an extended jam that coiled with ominous power.

"I remember thinking we're never going to write the lyrics to this thing, it's just too long and too scary," Frey said. But Henley, who had written the epic Eagles song "The Last Resort," responded with another "magnum opus," as Frey called it.

That forlorn rumination on the Middle East and geopolitics became the title track of the new album, even though much of the CD is relationship songs and honeyed harmonies. In fact, the album covers just about every Eagles musical territory and creative surges kept adding to it.

"We were done with the album a few times," Walsh said, "but it wasn't done with us." Maybe so, but the famously dour Henley frets that the album should have been leaner. "I think there are only a couple of superfluous things on there." He declined to elaborate. "That would break the band up. Again."

The most likely thing to break up the Eagles is time, distance (Henley lives in Dallas, the others in different parts of California) and the tug of family. The band just opened the Nokia Theatre with a run of shows but on opening night Henley was backstage talking about his family.

"I talked to my kids a little while ago; I had to remind them I had a concert tonight," Henley said with a chuckle.

Last summer he was the first Eagle to turn 60, and he celebrated by surfing in Malibu with his 9-year-old son and pal Jimmy Buffett. Smiling, Henley seemed just as interested in being a beach boy as in carrying on as an Eagle.

"This is the final statement. We got back together and went around the world twice on tour but then there was nothing left to do without new music. Now we have this album that fits in with our body of work. There won't be another Eagles album after this. That's what I think today."


-----
I remember Henley saying Fleetwood Mac had 'thrown in the towel' somewhere during the Say You Will tour. It's hard to know who's dirty laundry he was talking about now.
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  #17  
Old 11-07-2007, 04:18 AM
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I finally got it and I really like it! I need a few more listens to decide on any faves
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  #18  
Old 11-07-2007, 09:30 AM
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Billboard officially recognizes The Eagles new album Long Road Out Of Eden as #1. Bye bye Britney:

Eagles #1!
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  #19  
Old 11-07-2007, 10:33 AM
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Originally Posted by Tango View Post
Billboard officially recognizes The Eagles new album Long Road Out Of Eden as #1. Bye bye Britney:

Eagles #1!
Only after Wal-mart decided to publish, or report what the sales were... Traditionally, Wal-mart doesn't report on any of their sales - they aren't a Soundscan member from what I understand...

But Billboard made the right move... albeit shockingly fast (I wonder if they would have made the same decision if the album only sold enough to land at say #5). Moving that many copies in one week should be recognized on the Billboard 200... I don't think it should matter where cd's are sold, or who belongs to what reporting group.. if the sales are there, and can be confirmed they should be considered for the charts.
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Old 11-07-2007, 10:55 AM
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  #20  
Old 11-07-2007, 10:58 AM
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I don't think it should matter where cd's are sold, or who belongs to what reporting group.. if the sales are there, and can be confirmed they should be considered for the charts.
agreed. what a stupid policy. it's about time they changed it. and just in time, imo.

the difference b/w the #1 and #2 spots is staggering. I don't like The Eagles, but good for them. they did what FMac couldn't do in 2003.
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  #21  
Old 11-07-2007, 01:06 PM
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I don't like The Eagles, but good for them. they did what FMac couldn't do in 2003.
Because the Eagles and their management don't trip over themselves marketingwise or make painfully obvious marketing mistakes like Fleetwood Mac does.

If Fleetwood Mac would've gone ahead with the double disc idea for Say You Will, do you think they would've sold it for only $11.98? No way. It would've been close to $30 and even FEWER people would've bought it.

Hell, the only reason I bought the new Eagles album was because it WAS two discs for $11.98 (that, and I'm kind of a completist when it comes to bands like, used to like, or even hate now, but they come out with a new album).

I'm just blown away by this new Eagles album...I NEVER thought it would be this good in a million years.
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  #22  
Old 11-07-2007, 01:21 PM
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agreed. what a stupid policy. it's about time they changed it. and just in time, imo.

the difference b/w the #1 and #2 spots is staggering. I don't like The Eagles, but good for them. they did what FMac couldn't do in 2003.
Yeah, I'm not a fan really either... To countryish for me... But I'd like more clarification on the Wal-mart sales thing... So if Wal-mart is just now starting to report what they actually sell in their stores to Soundscan or Billboard to be included with the weekly sales tally along with the other retailers in the US, and rightly so, being the largest cd retailer in the US, they should... It leaves the question of, back in 2003 when SYW was released, assuming that anything sold through Wal-mart WASN'T reported and therefore not included in the weekly sales for chart placement, would FMac have had larger numbers?... And then of course with Lindsey and Stevie's releases this year and last...

So basically I'm confused. On Billboard it says a number of titles will debut on the top 200 as a result of Wal-mart now providing their sales... So you have to assume that none of the sales were even counted in the past...
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  #23  
Old 11-07-2007, 01:31 PM
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If Fleetwood Mac would've gone ahead with the double disc idea for Say You Will, do you think they would've sold it for only $11.98? No way. It would've been close to $30 and even FEWER people would've bought it.
They possibly could have had they put it out on their own label, not Warner Bros. like the Eagles have done - and stuck a seperate distribution deal side stepping traditional routes... That's the only way the Eagles were able to do it. Wal-mart guaranteed 3 million unit with no returns. This way the Eagles get to keep more of the so called pie.
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  #24  
Old 11-07-2007, 02:15 PM
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make painfully obvious marketing mistakes like Fleetwood Mac does
agreed.
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So basically I'm confused. On Billboard it says a number of titles will debut on the top 200 as a result of Wal-mart now providing their sales... So you have to assume that none of the sales were even counted in the past...
exactly. as for your question, I think what happens is when an album is only sold through one distributor, those units aren't calculated into the Billboard numbers. with Stevie and FMac and most artists' albums, that's not the case as they are sold at FYE, Target, Borders, Wal-Mart, Barnes & Noble, etc.

In consultation with Nielsen SoundScan, Billboard will now allow exclusive album titles that are only available through one retailer to appear on The Billboard 200 and other Billboard charts, effective with this week's charts. Prior to this, proprietary titles were not eligible to appear on most Billboard charts.
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Old 11-07-2007, 04:04 PM
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agreed.

exactly. as for your question, I think what happens is when an album is only sold through one distributor, those units aren't calculated into the Billboard numbers. with Stevie and FMac and most artists' albums, that's not the case as they are sold at FYE, Target, Borders, Wal-Mart, Barnes & Noble, etc.

In consultation with Nielsen SoundScan, Billboard will now allow exclusive album titles that are only available through one retailer to appear on The Billboard 200 and other Billboard charts, effective with this week's charts. Prior to this, proprietary titles were not eligible to appear on most Billboard charts.
Ahhh... I get it. Any title that Wal-mart sold exclusively... THOSE haven't been counted in the past. I misread that. Thanks.
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  #26  
Old 11-07-2007, 09:13 PM
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Thumbs up Eagles on the CMAs

Did you all see the Eagles on the CMAs? They were just on & sang How Long. I knew they would do that song. It has that country twang to it. I'm not into country music, but I like that song. I watched the CMAs because I knew they were going to be on there. Ha! Now I can go to bed. BTW, they did a great job.

Lee
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Old 11-07-2007, 09:25 PM
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Did you all see the Eagles on the CMAs? They were just on & sang How Long. I knew they would do that song. It has that country twang to it. I'm not into country music, but I like that song. I watched the CMAs because I knew they were going to be on there. Ha! Now I can go to bed. BTW, they did a great job.

Lee

Agreed, they were great, but a little stiff looking! Their first single on the album, so it made sense. And a little Lindsey loosely "related" news, Little Big Town is up for at least one award.

L&M, if you're out there any time, you gotta be really happy.
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  #28  
Old 11-08-2007, 01:40 AM
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I really like the Title track. Amazingly, to me it doesnt seem like a 10 minute song at all.
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  #29  
Old 11-08-2007, 03:26 AM
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Please tell me I'm not the only person here who ****ing hates The Eagles.

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  #30  
Old 11-08-2007, 05:27 AM
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I just heard this song on the radio this morning and I could'nt help but wonder WHO It COULD Be about! Not naming any names of course!
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