Don Henley & The Eagles Makeout All Night With Wal-Mart

The Eagles are set to release their first album of new material since 1979 and have given Wal-Mart exclusive rights to it for the first year of circulation. After 12 months, customers will be able to buy it elsewhere. Henley sees no issue with this. I imagine most of the rest of us normals do. He explains:

A lot of the people who have criticized us are obviously unaware of what Wal-Mart is doing in overhauling their operation,” he said, rattling off the company’s well-publicized initiatives to open eco-friendly “green stores,” reduce packaging and use its market share to pressure vendors into pursuing environmentally conscious approaches. And there’s the fact that the Wal-Mart deal offered a promising escape route for Henley and his band mates; they have no traditional record label deal, and, after watching the file-sharing websites rise to power, they were open to any path to keep their connection with fans.

“This is the world we live in,” Henley said. Then, with a chuckle, he added: ‘In the big picture, they can’t be any more evil than a major record label.’ …

Wal-Mart is happy with the deal, at least so far; David Porter, Wal-Mart’s vice president of home entertainment, gushed back in October that the retailer was ‘very pleased to be able to bring our customers an alliance with America’s greatest rock icons.’

Still, in the bargain Wal-Mart gets a cranky star promising to keep an eye on the promises made (’I will be watchful.’) and to make a stink if they don’t come through (’You can always get a divorce.’)

The album that Wal-Mart will be getting won’t be the predictably neutral material it always got from its other corporate troubadour, Garth Brooks. Henley said the lyrics are laced with dark humor and war protest.

There were two competing mega concert series in the summer of 1995:

Page/Plant, who re-worked a bunch of their old material (excluding Stairway to Heaven) with Middle Eastern orchestras, hurdy-gurdy players, and Egyptian vocalists, charging about $25-30 a pop.

Then there were the Eagles, whose live performances sounded like a letter-crisp reproduction of their oversold records, and who were charging $75 a pop, which apparently included some sort of 300% gullible boomer markup. About as challenging as a Junior Jumble where the clues are TEH, OWC, and GIP.

“America’s greatest rock icons.” You know, the sad thing is that might be correct for a large segment of the population. Bleccchhh.