Don Henley

After spending the majority of the 1980's on the charts, MTV and radio, Don Henley quietly sat out the '90s, waiting for his recording contract to expire. Inside Job, his first album in a decade, picks up where End of the Innocence left off -- both to the album's credit and to its detriment. Henley still hasn't lost his charm -- or the chip on his shoulder!

On his first two solo albums (I Can't Stand Still and Building the Perfect Beast), Don Henley
made yearning his great theme. Something had disappeared that could never be recovered
-- the Sixties? the Eagles? love? hope? -- and songs like "The Boys of Summer" and "Long Way
Home" summoned the deep ache of that loss. On The End of the Innocence, Henley edged
closer to acceptance and a renewed sense of possibility, especially on the albu... More >

On his last album, in CD-cusp 1989, six out of 10 tracks ran over five minutes; on this one, it's nine out of 13, with two others clocking in at 4:49 and 4:50. Since my own suspicions have been on record since the Eagles conquered the air, believe my formerly sympathetic California buddy Greil Marcus in Salon: "While it's well known that as one gets older, one tends to find changes in the world at large unsettling, confusing, f*cking irritating, a rebuke to one's very existence, it's generally not a good idea to make a career out of saying so." (Grade - C-)