Building The Perfect Beast O Fallon MO

Building The Perfect Beast

Don Henley

Geffen Records, 1984

REVIEW BY: Christopher Thelen

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 06/10/1997

Now that MTV has been around for well over a decade, we haveseen many artists who have benefitted from the advent of the musicvideo. Some of these artists were deserving of the attention thisnew media gave them, where they would otherwise have beenignored.

Other artists should drop to their knees and kiss MTV's butt forgiving them success they did not deserve - albums which would havebetter been ignored.

Don Henley, for example, had carved out his place in rockhistory as the drummer and one of the vocalists for the Eagles, oneof my favorite bands. While the band took an extended "vacation,"Henley moved on to a dubious solo career. His second album, 1984's Building The Perfect Beast, is one depressing effort thatrejects all the lessons learned with the Eagles.

The album became a hit with its first single and video, "TheBoys Of Summer." Despite a robotic drum track, Henley does a fairlydecent job on the remainder of the track, and has held its own wellover a decade since its release.