Sorry, the Eagles did it first, kind of.

Their first four Eagle albums (one per year from 1972-75) were of a different style mostly.  Thus in retrospect, the genius of Hotel California in 1976 almost screamed a band heading different directions.   For those paying attention when HC was released, perhaps a retrospect isn't even needed.   If considering One of These Nights from a musical standpoint, maybe neither is true.


The discussion of how different Hotel California is as compared to the previous albums is another matter, and one that is largely a matter of opinion.     Overall though, as is the case so often with musicians and the artistically inclined, such situations as the "different directions" situation  tend to be both bitter and dramatic.   However it's phrased, be it getting your bearings, working out things, getting space, time to grow.   Trying to operate as a group rather than a number of people that perhaps dislike each other and  want to do different things.  The egos, the oh I don't know.  
When  The Long Run made its way to release three years later in 1979, it should have been musically more than apparent though.   Sales might lead one to believe those sales tell a different story.   Yet more likely it is just a case of inertia not having caught up with friction.   Who wasn't going to get the next album?  "Especially since the band had been slaving over it for three years.   It is going to be awesome!"

Right.   If only.

TLR was, it turned out, that Eagles' last album.  At least from the standpoint that twenty-eight years later in 2007, Long Road Out of Eden was not really from the same band that broke apart in or around 1979.

Which is some background and such, but not really the point.

The notion that the Eagles were the first or would be the last is a silly one.  The Beatles had done it, perhaps far more spectacularly, and one can certainly trace back any number of ventures, musically and otherwise, that have done the same.   To pre-history and before on any number of things.

Still, in a notional way, how does one top something like Hotel California in the first place, anyway.   No matter how much you may try (and the trying instead of just doing is another whole bag of chickens) the magic is, well, magic.    The inverse is likely true; the longer you wait, the longer you think about it; the worse you are going to make it, not the better.  

So after what we'd imagine was three years of struggling on a number of fronts, the fans get a goodbye that even in the absence of expectations is likely going to be less than inspiring.  "Ho hum, what is this anyway.    They used to be so good!"     Over the course of only some eight or so years (1971-1979) we probably can't throw in much of another aspect that means quite a bit, the aspect of fond memories.

While comparing a band and its trials and tribulations to a movie essentially under the control of one person isn't the best of comparisons, but there are some similarities.   We're talking of course about Star Wars.

That's another post though.