Selected Works (2000)
Disc One
1. Take it Easy
2. Hollywood Waltz
3. Arleady Gone
4. Doolin Dalton
5. Midnight Flyer
6. Tequilla Sunrise
7. Witchy Woman
8. Train Leaves Here This Morning
9. Outlaw Man
10.Peaceful Easy Feeling
11.James Dean
12.Saturday Night
13.On the Border
Disc Two
1. Wasted Time (Reprise)
2. Wasted Time
3. I Can't Tell You Why
4. Lyin' Eyes
5. Pretty Maids All in a Row
6. Desperado
7. Try and Love Again
8. The Best of My Love
9. New Kid in Town
10.Love Will Keep Us Alive
11.The Sad Cafe
12.Take it to the Limit
13.After the Thrill is Gone
Disc Three
1. One of These Nights (Intro)
2. One of These Nights
3. Disco Strangler
4. Heartache Tonight
5. Hotel California
6. Born to Boogie
7. In the City
8. Get Over It
9. King of Hollywood
10.Too Many Hands
11.Life in the Fast Lane
12.The Long Run
13.Long Run Leftovers
14.The Last Resort
15.Random Victims, Part 3
Disc Four
1. Hotel California
2. Victim of Love
3. Peaceful Easy Feeling
4. Please Come Home for Christmas
5. Ol' 55
6. Take it to the Limit
7. Those Shoes
8. Funky New Year
9. Dirty Laundry
10.Funk 49
11.All She Wants to do is Dance
12.Best of My Love
 
After The Eagles reunited in 1994,
they hadn't recorded anything new up to this point, but they kept the
touring (i.e. money) machine moving steadily, so the band was now
consistently in the forefront and proved the reunion was not a "one
off". Therefore, it really shouldn't surprise anyone that they would
follow in the path of just about every other artist with a history and
get around to releasing a box set. Especially since it was now close to
Christmas time .
As far as a traditional box set goes, this one fares quite well. The
irony, however, is that this band didn't really have that much
recorded material, so it wouldn't have been totally unthinkable to
simply put out a retrospective that contained literally every thing they
had recorded at this point (such as The Police did a few years ago).
But they chose to not quite go that far. Still,this is a pretty good "best
of and then some" package. The first three discs are categorized into
"the early years", "the ballads" and "the fast lane", but there is too
much overlapping to really take these labels too seriously (i.e.
Desperado is listed as a "ballad" when it could have been an
"early year"). Sadly, there's not much unreleased stuff here, but that
could have been because they didn't have much unreleased stuff in the vaults.
The only unreleased song here is Born to Boogie that is
pretty silly and not really worth mentioning. They have a couple of
interesting snippets throughout - a radio program portion with Frey and
Henley in the studio having Don Felder call in and play a new unreleased
song over the phone, a montage of unused song portions from The Long Run, and an outtake from a Hotel California recording session that
features some pretty funny in-studio banter. It actually sounds like no
one was aware the microphones were turned on.
The real treat is the fourth disc, a live recording of a New Year's Eve
show in 1999. The recording is much more spirited than anything on Eagles Live and has some nice chestnuts
amongst the hits. There's some solo material by the guys mixed in, that
I never cared for (not when there was so much group stuff that could
have been included instead). They also include Please Come Home for
Christmas and Funky New Year as part of the set (previously recorded
by the Eagles, but only released on single). This is actually another
disappointment - not because of the songs, but because they take up
space on a live disc when they should have been on one of the other
three discs in their original studio formats. That would have been
ideal for a box set, but I guess someone else had a different
opinion.
The live disc was probably the main selling point, since most people
would rather shell out this kind of cash for all the studio albums
(there were only six total, remember) than get something that had most,
but not all, of those songs. Still, a good choice of songs and the
whole piece flows quite well.
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