With five number one singles, six Grammys, five American Music Awards, and six number one albums, the Eagles were one of the most successful musical acts of the 1970s.
At the end of the 20th century, two of their albums, Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975) and Hotel California, ranked among the 20 best-selling albums in the U.S. according to the Recording Industry Association of America.
Hotel California is ranked 37th in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and the band was ranked #75 on the magazine's 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. They also have the best selling album in the U.S. with Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975), which sold more than 29 million copies. They have sold over 120 million albums worldwide and 100 million in the U.S. alone. They are the fifth highest selling music act in U.S. history and the highest selling American band in U.S. history. No other American band sold more than the Eagles during the 1970s.
The Eagles released their self titled debut album in 1972 which spawned three Top 40 singles, "Take It Easy", "Witchy Woman", and "Peaceful Easy Feeling". They followed up the success of their debut album with Desperado in 1973. The album was less successful than the first, reaching only #41 on the charts and neither of its two singles reached the Top 40. However, the album contained two of the band's most popular and beloved tracks, "Desperado" and "Tequila Sunrise".
They released On the Border in 1974 and added guitarist Don Felder midway through the recording of the album. The album released two Top 40 singles, "Already Gone" and their first chart topper, "Best of My Love". It was not until 1975's One of These Nights, though, that the Eagles became America's biggest band. The album released three Top 10 singles, "One of These Nights", "Lyin' Eyes", and "Take It to the Limit".
They continued with that success in late 1976 with the release of Hotel California, which would go on to sell over 16 million copies in the U.S. alone. The album yielded three Top 20 singles, "New Kid in Town", "Hotel California", and "Life in the Fast Lane". They released their last studio album for nearly 28 years in 1979 with The Long Run. The album displayed that the Eagles were still at the top of their popularity at the time of their breakup and the album released three Top 10 singles, "Heartache Tonight", "The Long Run", and "I Can't Tell You Why".
The Eagles broke up in July 1980, but reunited in 1994 for Hell Freezes Over, a mix of live and new studio tracks. They have toured intermittently since then and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.
In 2007, the Eagles released Long Road out of Eden, their first full studio album in 28 years. The album would top the album charts, release five singles on the Adult Contemporary Charts and win the band two Grammys. The next year they launched The Long Road out of Eden Tour in support of the album.
"Hotel California" is the title song from the Eagles' album of the same name and was released as a single in February 1977. It is one of the best-known songs of the album-oriented rock era. Writing credits for the song are shared by Don Felder, Don Henley and Glenn Frey. The Eagles' original recording of the song features Henley singing the lead vocals and concludes with an extended section of electric guitar interplay between Felder and Joe Walsh.
"Hotel California" topped the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for one week in May 1977. Three months after its release, the single was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America representing 1,000,000 records shipped. The Eagles also won the 1977 Grammy Award for Record of the Year for "Hotel California" at the 20th Annual Grammy Awards in 1978.
In 2009, the song "Hotel California" was certified Platinum (Digital Sales Award) by the RIAA for sales of 1,000,000 digital downloads.
The song is rated highly in many rock music lists and polls. Rolling Stone magazine, for example, placed it as the 49th greatest song of all time.
It is also one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. The song's guitar solo is ranked 8th on Guitar Magazine's Top 100 Guitar Solos and was voted the best solo of all time by readers of Guitarist magazine.
As one of the group's most popular and well-known songs, "Hotel California" has been a concert staple for the band since its release; performances of the song appear on the Eagles' 1980 live album simply called "Live", and, in an acoustic version, on the 1994 [Hell Freezes Over] reunion concert CD and video release. The "Hell Freezes Over" version is performed using eight guitars in total, and has a decidedly Spanish feel to it - with Don Felder playing a flamenco-inspired intro. During the band's Farewell 1 Tour-Live from Melbourne the song was performed in a manner closer to the original album version, but with a trumpet interlude in the beginning.
Glenn Frey described the origins of the song:
The song began as a demo tape, an instrumental by Don Felder. He’d been submitting tapes and song ideas to us since he’d joined the band, always instrumentals, since he didn’t sing. But this particular demo, unlike many of the others, had room for singing. It immediately got our attention. The first working title, the name we gave it, was ‘Mexican Reggae'
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