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Don Henley is back with first studio album in eleven years.
By anyone's standards, it's been a long wait, but the Eagles drummer and
vocalist is back with a new solo record - Inside Job . Now signed to
Warner Brothers for a three-album deal, this is his first release
of any kind since Actual Miles : Henley's Greatest Hits in 1995, and
the first album proper since 1989's hugely successful The End Of The
Innocence .
Despite such a low-profile on the recording front over the past decade,
Henley was far from idle. In addition to a handful of contributions to
film soundtracks, he has continued to work on his non-profit
organisation The Walden Woods Project which aims to protect the
environmentally sensitive areas associated with the father of the
American environmental movement, Henry Thoreau . Then there was the small
matter of the Eagles reformation in the mid-nineties, and the extensive
touring schedule that followed.
The musical sensibilities and keen lyrical intellect that were first
evidenced on the title track of the Eagles ' 1976 album Hotel California
have become Henley's trademark signature throughout his subsequent
career. Contemporaries such as Randy Newman and Jackson Browne may have
achieved similar critical acclaim, but it has been his enduring ability
to coat his often ironic and satiric commentaries in the most luxuriant
of melodies and layered arrangements which has seen him sell over 10
million solo albums since 1981 in America alone.
His most successful post-Eagles work has fused the emotional and the
political almost seamlessly. The Boys Of Summer and The End Of The
Innocence were as much paeans to a generation of lost dreams and
ideals, as evocative love songs that echoed the sense of loss and
discovery on a more emotional and personal level.
Blessed with a voice that can convey an acute poignancy and potency into
even the most routine of lyrics, Henley has the advantage over his peers
of being able to connect with a large audience while still remaining
true to his convictions.
It will be of no surprise to those familiar with Henley's previous work
that the songs on Inside Job are frequently - by his own admission -
very much "issue-oriented". The growing anger and disillusionment Henley
feels towards the increasingly corporate nature of his homeland has been
a running theme throughout his solo work, and it's something which
continues to infuse the material on the new album.
However, a balance is provided in the form of several
personally-oriented tracks. For Henley, the 90s were a time for family -
he married and became a father three times over. For My Wedding ,
Taking You Home and Annabel are heartfelt and typically poignant
celebrations of new-found domesticity and happiness.
Perhaps because of the cultural and political differences between
America and Britain, Henley is best known here for songs which deal more
in matters of the heart. While the likes of They're Not Here, They're
Not Coming (on which he scythes through the whole "cult" of America's
obession with extra-terrestrial conspiracy theories) and Goodbye To A
River (an elegy to dying eco-systems) should still have worldwide
relevance, they will probably delight listeners more through their
musical qualities than anything else.
They're Not Here... in particular has an insistent (almost jaunty)
rhythm, and an extremely radio-friendly melody.
Meanwhile, Taking You Home - originally written for inclusion in the
film Double Jeopardy , but now the source of a legal dispute with
Paramount Pictures - is a classic Henley ballad, and has been chosen for
the first single in America.
The difference between Inside Job and previous Henley albums - aside
from length (at 13 tracks and 70 minutes, it's almost twice as long as
both 1981's I Can't Stand Still and 1985's Building The Perfect
Beast ) - is the remarkably high quality of the material. Whereas the
others had at least one or two tracks that could charitably be called
fillers, there are simply no weak links here whatsoever. The bitter
Damn, It Rose and venomous title track ("You don't have a fucking
clue..."
In the past, Henley's work has found a substantial audience in the US.
Despite the lengthy hiatus and the ever-changing social and musical
climates, a certain degree of that following should still remain.
In the UK, his last two studio offerings both reached the Top 20, and were
certified silver. Though perhaps unlikely to emulate the huge success of
his Eighties albums, Inside Job marks the very welcome and long-overdue
return from one of the finest artists of his generation.
Review copyright © Jason Maloney, 2000.
E-mail Jason Maloney
Check out Jason's homepage:
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DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
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