Eagles is the debut album by the rock band of the same name, released in 1972. The album was recorded at London's Olympic Studios with producer Glyn Johns. The album was an immediate success for the young band reaching #22 on the charts and going platinum. The album also released three Top 40 singles with “Take it Easy”, “Witchy Woman” and “Peaceful Easy Feeling”. The three singles reached #12, #9 and #22 respectively. The album played a major role in popularizing the southern California country rock sound.
Review
Balance is the key element of the Eagles' self-titled debut album, a
collection that contains elements of rock & roll, folk, and country,
overlaid by vocal harmonies alternately suggestive of doo wop, the Beach Boys,
and the Everly Brothers. If the group kicks up its heels on rockers like “Chug
All Night,” “Nightingale,” and “Tryin',” it is equally convincing on
ballads like “Most of Us Are Sad” and “Train Leaves Here This Morning.”
The album is also balanced among its members, who trade off on lead vocal chores
and divide the songwriting such that Glenn Frey, Bernie Leadon, and Randy
Meisner all get three writing or co-writing credits. (Fourth member Don Henley,
with only one co-writing credit and two lead vocals, falls a little behind,
while Jackson Browne, Gene Clark, and Jack Tempchin also figure in the writing
credits.) The album's overall balance is worth keeping in mind because it
produced three Top 40 hit singles (all of which turned up on the massively
popular Eagles: Their Greatest Hits 1971–1975) that do not reflect that
balance. “Take It Easy” and “Peaceful Easy Feeling” are similar-sounding
mid-tempo folk-rock tunes sung by Frey that express the same sort of laid-back
philosophy, as indicated by the word “easy” in both titles, while “Witchy
Woman,” a Henley vocal and co-composition, initiates the band's career-long
examination of supernaturally evil females. These are the songs one remembers
from Eagles, and they look forward to the eventual dominance of the band by Frey
and Henley. But the complete album from which they come belongs as much to
Leadon's country-steeped playing and singing and to Meisner's melodic rock
& roll feel, which, on the release date, made it seem a more varied and
consistent effort than it did later, when the singles had become overly
familiar.