Hotel California is the fifth studio album by American rock band the Eagles, released on December 8, 1976, by Asylum Records. Recorded by the band and produced by Bill Szymczyk at the Criteria and Record Plant studios between March and October 1976, it was the band’s first album with guitarist Joe Walsh, who had replaced founding member Bernie Leadon, and the last to feature founding bassist Randy Meisner. The album cover features a photograph of the Beverly Hills Hotel, taken by David Alexander.
Hotel California was an immediate critical and commercial success, topping the US Billboard 200 chart. At the 20th Grammy Awards, the title track won Record of the Year, and “New Kid in Town” won Best Arrangement for Voices. The album was also nominated for Album of the Year but lost to Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours (1977). Three singles were released from the album, with the title track and “New Kid in Town” topping the Billboard Hot 100 and “Life in the Fast Lane” reaching No. 11.
Hotel California is one of the best-selling albums of all time. It has been certified 26× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in the US, and has sold over 32 million units worldwide, making it the band’s second best-selling album after Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975) (1976).[3] Ranked by various publications as one of the greatest albums of all time, it was placed at number 37 on Rolling Stone’s list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” in 2003 and 2012, re-positioned to number 118 in the 2020 edition. A 40th anniversary special edition of Hotel California was released in November 2017. The band played the album in its entirety during the Hotel California 2020 Tour.
Theme
The first song written for the album was the title track, which became the theme for the album.[4] Don Henley said of the themes of the songs in the album:
They’re the same themes that run through all of our work: loss of innocence, the cost of naiveté, the perils of fame, of excess; exploration of the dark underbelly of the American dream, idealism realized and idealism thwarted, illusion versus reality, the difficulties of balancing loving relationships and work, trying to square the conflicting relationship between business and art; the corruption in politics, the fading away of the Sixties dream of “peace, love and understanding.”[4]
On the title “Hotel California”, Henley said that “the word, ‘California,’ carries with it all kinds of connotations, powerful imagery, mystique, etc., that fires the imaginations of people in all corners of the globe. There’s a built-in mythology that comes with that word, an American cultural mythology that has been created by both the film and the music industry.”[4] In an interview with the Dutch magazine ZigZag shortly before the album’s release, Henley said:
This is a concept album, there’s no way to hide it, but it’s not set in the old West, the cowboy thing, you know. It’s more urban this time (…) It’s our bicentennial year, you know, the country is 200 years old, so we figured since we are the Eagles and the Eagle is our national symbol, that we were obliged to make some kind of a little bicentennial statement using California as a microcosm of the whole United States, or the whole world, if you will, and to try to wake people up and say ‘We’ve been okay so far, for 200 years, but we’re gonna have to change if we’re gonna continue to be around.'”[5]
Composition
Bernie Leadon, who was the principal country influence in the band, left the band after the release of the previous album, One of These Nights (1975). For Hotel California, the band made a conscious decision to move away from country rock, and wrote some songs with a more straightforward rock and roll sound, such as “Victim of Love” and “Life in the Fast Lane”. Leadon was replaced by Joe Walsh who provided the opening guitar riff of “Life in the Fast Lane” that was then developed into the song. The title for “Life in the Fast Lane” was inspired by a conversation between Frey and his drug dealer during a high speed car ride.[6]
The chord progression and basic melody of the title track, “Hotel California”, was written by Don Felder. Don Henley wrote most of the lyrics, with contributions from Glenn Frey. Henley noted that the hotel had become a “literal and symbolic focal point of their lives at that time”, and it became the theme of the song. Frey wanted the song to be “more cinematic”, and to write it “just like it was a movie”. Henley sought inspiration for the lyrics by driving out into the desert, as well as from films and theatre.[7] Parts of the lyrics of “Hotel California” as well as the song “Wasted Time” were based on Henley’s break up with his then girlfriend Loree Rodkin.[8][9]
Frey, in the “Hotel California” episode of In the Studio with Redbeard,[10] spoke about the writing of “The Last Resort”. Frey said: “It was the first time that Don took it upon himself to write an epic story and we were already starting to worry about the environment… we’re constantly screwing up paradise and that was the point of the song and that at some point there is going to be no more new frontiers. I mean we’re putting junk, er, garbage into space now.”[11]
Recording
The album was recorded between March and October 1976 at Criteria Studios in Miami and Record Plant Studios in Los Angeles, and produced by Bill Szymczyk.[2] Although the band favored Los Angeles, the producer Szymczyk wanted to record in Miami as he had developed a fear of living on a fault line in Los Angeles after experiencing an earthquake, and a compromise was then struck to split the recording between both places.[6] While the band were recording the album, Black Sabbath were recording Technical Ecstasy in an adjacent studio at Criteria Studios. The band was forced to stop recording on numerous occasions because Black Sabbath were too loud and the sound was coming through the wall.[12] The last track of the album, “The Last Resort”, had to be re-recorded a number of times due to noise from the next studio.[6]
For the title track “Hotel California”, after the arrangement and instrumentation had been refined, several complete takes were recorded. The best parts were then spliced together, in all 33 edits on the two‑inch master, to create the final version.[2] In contrast, “Victim of Love” was recorded in a live session in studio apart from the lead vocal and the harmony on the choruses which were added later. Don Felder initially sang the lead vocals in the many early takes for the song, but the band felt that his efforts were not up to the required standard, and Henley then took over as the lead.[6] Producer Szymczyk claims that the basic tracks for the entire album were recorded in complete takes,[2] but he does not describe how individual songs were recorded (other than the aforementioned “Hotel California” and “Victim of Love”).
According to Henley in a 1982 interview, the Eagles “probably peaked on Hotel California”. Henley said: “After that, we started growing apart as collaborators and as friends.”[13]
Artwork
Eagles performing “Hotel California” in 2010 with the image from the album cover in the background
Resembling the cover of Jackson Browne’s album “Late for the Sky” released in 1974, the front cover artwork is a photograph of The Beverly Hills Hotel shot just before sunset by David Alexander with design and art direction by Kosh.[14] According to Kosh, Henley wanted him to find a place that can portray the Hotel California of the album title, and “portray it with a slightly sinister edge”. Three hotels were photographed, and the one with The Beverly Hills Hotel was selected as the cover. Both the photographer and Kosh shot the image 60 feet above Sunset Boulevard on top of a cherry picker.[15] As the image was taken from an unfamiliar vantage point in fading light, most people did not initially recognize the hotel. However, when the identity of Beverly Hills Hotel was revealed, the hotel threatened legal action over the use of the image.[6]
The rear album cover was shot in the lobby of the Lido Hotel in Hollywood.[16][17] The gatefold image shows the same lobby but filled with members of the band and their friends. Henley said: “I wanted a collection of people from all walks of life, It’s people on the edge, on the fringes of society.” A shadowy figure appears on the balcony above the lobby, which led to speculations over the person’s identity.[18]
Kosh designed a Hotel California logo as a neon sign which was used on the album cover and in its promotional materials. As it proved difficult to bend real neon tubings into the desired shape of the script, the neon effect of the logo was achieved with airbrush by Bob Hickson. Additional portraits of the band used in the album package and promotional materials were shot by Norman Seeff.[15]
Release
The album was released by Asylum Records on December 8, 1976, in vinyl, cassette and 8-track cartridge formats. It was considered for quadraphonic release in early 1977, but this idea was dropped following the demise of the quadraphonic format. On the album’s 25th anniversary in 2001, it was released in a Multichannel 5.1 DVD-Audio disc. On August 17, 2011, the album was released on a hybrid SACD in Japan in The Warner Premium Sound series, containing both a stereo and a 5.1 mix.[19]
Original vinyl pressings of Hotel California (Elektra/Asylum catalog no. 7E-1084) had custom picture labels of a blue Hotel California logo with a yellow background. These also had text engraved in the run-out groove of each side, continuing an in-joke trend the band had started with their third album On the Border. The text reads: Side one: “Is It 6 O’Clock Yet?”; Side two: “V.O.L. Is Five-Piece Live”, indicating that the song “Victim of Love” was recorded in a live session in studio, with no overdubbing. Joe Walsh and Glenn Frey confirm this on the inner booklet of The Very Best Of.[20] This only referred to the instrumental track, however; the lead vocal and harmony for the chorus were added later. This was in response to those who criticized the Eagles’ practice of copious overdubbing of instruments and that they were too clinical and soulless in the studio. They wanted to demonstrate that they could play together without overdubs if they wanted to.[6]
A 40th anniversary deluxe edition was released on November 24, 2017. The set includes the original remastered album, and a second CD that features 10 live tracks from the concert at The Forum, recorded in October 1976 two months before the original release of the album.[21] This bonus CD was also issued as a stand-alone vinyl LP in 2021.[22]
Hotel California was met with widespread critical acclaim. Village Voice critic Robert Christgau felt it was their “most substantial if not their most enjoyable LP”,[25] while Charley Walters of Rolling Stone felt it showcased “both the best and worst tendencies of Los Angeles-situated rock”.[33] Both critics picked up on the album’s California themes – Christgau remarking that while it may in places be “pretentious and condescending” and that “Don Henley is incapable of conveying a mental state as complex as self-criticism”, the band couldn’t have written the songs on side one “without caring about their California theme down deep”;[25] Walters in contrast felt the “lyrics present a convincing and unflattering portrait of the milieu itself”, and that Don Henley’s vocals express well “the weary disgust of a victim (or observer) of the region’s luxurious excess”.[33] Billboard gave the album high praise: “The casually beautiful, quietly-intense multileveled vocal harmonies and brilliant original songs that meld solid emotional words with lovely melody lines are all back in force, keeping the Eagles at the acme of acoustic electric soft rock.” It noted that, even though the album did not try out any new departure other than the “Procol Harum-type” title track, “the album proves that there’s a lot more left to explore profitably and artistically in the L.A. countryish-rock style.”[34][35]
Retrospective reviews have also been positive. Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times, writing after the band broke up, called the album “a legitimate rock masterpiece”, in which the band “examined their recurring theme about the American Dream with more precision, power and daring than ever in such stark, uncompromising songs as “Hotel California” and “The Last Resort”.”[36] William Ruhlmann from AllMusic later said “Hotel California unveiled what seemed almost like a whole new band. It was a band that could be bombastic, but also one that made music worthy of the later tag of ‘classic rock’, music appropriate for the arenas and stadiums the band was playing.”[23] Steve Holtje, writing for CultureCatch in 2012, felt that even though “an awful lot of the album is snarky whining from co-leaders Don Henley and Glenn Frey, two guys who didn’t really seem like they had that much they could legitimately complain about”, in the final analysis “Hotel California and the underrated concept album Desperado stand as the group’s greatest statements”.[37]
Ultimate Classic Rock critic Sterling Whitaker rated both “Wasted Time” and “The Last Resort” as being among the Eagles’ 10 most underrated songs.[38]