Eagles - Hotel California [81227961619]

Label: Asylum Records 

Hotel California represented a commercial peak for the Eagles, selling nine million copies in its year of release alone. Founder member Bernie Leadon quit and was replaced with tougher-sounding guitarist Joe Walsh just before the band spent eight months in the studio crafting this album. Unfortunately, as often happens with albums that take so long to make, spontaneity is almost wholly sacrificed to a virtuosity of a somewhat sterile kind, and some of these songs appear in far more energetic and interesting versions on the band's Live album. Still,Hotel California has had a massive influence--its formula of soft country and hard rock has been endlessly imitated, but few acts have recaptured the weary loveliness of the Eagles' template.