The Eagles : The Disco Strangler

I don't have much to say about the Eagles. I mean, they're the fucking Eagles for god's sake. What could I say that hasn't been written already? Except that one of the functions of this blog is to introduce you to interesting music you probably haven't heard before, and this song almost certainly falls into this category (unless you're a huge Eagles fan).

It is a very strange song. It sounds a bit like someone rammed "Life in the Fast Lane" headlong into Studio 54 and the result was this mangled wreckage of a tune. It's funky, fooling around with a disco offbeat, but it's hypersyncopated, too funky to really dance to. The angular guitar is clearly a Walshian Eagles lick, but it's off-kilter with the rest of the track and the snare staggers around like a drunk at closing time. The whole thing stumbles along, seemingly ready to come crashing down at any moment, but it manages to hold itself together, and in the end you end up with a frustratingly catchy tune.

"The Disco Strangler" is available on the Eagles' final 70's release, The Long Run, which has a bunch of hits on it, as well as the so-awesome-I-almost-posted-it-instead "Those Shoes".

Listen to "The Disco Strangler" on Spotify.
Listen to The Long Run of Spotify.

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