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This week’s surprise

OUR OWN Philip Martin once compared the Eagles to the Dallas Cowboys. They were popular, their fans noisy, and they won all the time. (Note to our younger readers: There was a time when the football stadium in Dallas wasn’t always closed this time of year.)

So, yeah, the Eagles were popular. And lucky. When the band came together in the early 1970s, singing songs like “Take It Easy” and “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” the country might have been ready for some laid-back California music after the Sixties. And around about 1980, when the band broke up, something called Classic Rock Radio was becoming popular. Which changed radio and music sales. Up to that point, a single that was six months old was so six months old—and out of style. Classic rock formats made old music cool again. And no band benefited more from that change than the Eagles.

But the Eagles were also very, very good. No matter what The Dude from The Big Lebowski might think. Hotel California and the band’s first greatest-hits albums are two of the Top 15-selling albums of all time. The Beatles don’t have that. Elvis doesn’t have that.

Their popularity—their massive popularity—might have ended up hurting them among some types, especially as the years have gone by. The cool kids might brag that they never bought an Eagles album. Good for them. But they’re missing out.

One of the founders of the band, and who became one-half of what became The Eagles later, died earlier this week. Glenn Frey had been sick for some time—the music news carried tidbits and items here and there—but the general reaction to his death at 67 was . . . Are you kidding?

Because for a lot of people of a certain age, Glenn Frey and the Eagles have always been there. They’ve at least been in the background, providing the soundtrack for dates and parties—and inspiration for a couple of buddies sitting around on deck chairs playing acoustic guitars trying to harmonize enough to impress the girls.

Hotel California is still cool. The second side of The Long Run album is still cool. The Desperado album is still cool, even if it was widely panned when it came out. (Who doesn’t like the Doolin-Dalton reprise at the end?)

Okay then, so the Eagles were popular music’s version of the Cowboys. But somebody had to be on top for all those years. What were other choices for most popular band in the class of ‘75-‘80? Fleetwood Mac? The Bee Gees? Besides, what better band to be the Cowboys than a group of agitators from the west singing about desperados, outlaw men and banditos running from the hanging tree?

Still, days after Glenn Frey’s death, people were still walking around saying, softly, “Are you kidding?” We wish we were. There’s talk on the street, it’s there to remind you

It doesn’t really matter which side you’re on

You’re walking away, and they’re talking behind you,

They never will forget you till somebody new comes along . . . .