Don Henley - The End of the Innocence [1998 MFSL UDCD 721] (1989)
EAC Image (WV+CUE+LOG) | 325.3 MB | Covers (200 dpi) included
Genre: Rock
Album review by Themis-Athena @
Amazon.com:
"Remember when the days were long and rolled beneath a deep blue sky" ... remember Paradise Lost and the Last Resort? At the end of the 1980s, his awareness of society and what's wrong with it more acute than ever, on his third solo album Don Henley took up the theme of the closing song of the Eagles' classic "Hotel California" even more forcefully than on his two prior releases. Now, however, it was not just "somebody" any longer who "laid the mountains low while the town got high." Now the enemy had a face; he was "the tired old man that we elected king;" that cowboy whose name was Jingo, and who "heard that there was trouble, so in a blaze of glory he rode out of the west - nobody was ever certain what it was that he was sayin' but they loved it when he told them they were better than the rest." ("Little Tin God.")
By the time he published "The End of the Innocence," Don Henley's name was as firmly established as that of a successful solo artist as it had previously come to be known as one of the driving forces behind the Eagles' almost decade-long success. Commercially his most successful album and critically his most acclaimed, his third solo release garnered a Grammy for Best Male Rock Vocalist (for the title track) and produced several more hit singles besides "The End of the Innocence:" "The Heart of the Matter," "New York Minute," "How Bad Do You Want It?" and "Last Worthless Evening." Stylistically, the album ranges from ballads like the piano-driven title song (co-written by Bruce Hornsby, whose fingerprints are all over its instrumentation; not just in the keyboards but also in the saxophone solo, performed by Wayne Shorter, and in the song's main theme), "The Last Worthless Evening," and Don Henley's variation on the theme of forgiveness, "The Heart of the Matter" (a song that took him "42 years to write," as he explained during the opening show of the Eagles' "Hell Freezes Over" tour) - all the way to hard-rocking tunes like "I Will Not Go Quietly," featuring background vocals by Axl Rose. In between are the jazzy, introspective "New York Minute," yet another (percussion- and rhythm-driven) warning that the world "ain't no Shangri-La," the deceptively light-footed "Little Tin God," and no less than three hard, edgy songs rounding up Henley's damning verdict on Reaganomics ("How Bad Do You Want It?," "Gimme What You Got" and "If Dirt Were Dollars").
As were his previous solo albums, "The End of the Innocence" was co-produced and largely co-written by Danny Kortchmar, and likewise as on the previous albums, Henley enlisted the cooperation of a number of other outstanding musicians - in addition to Kortchmar, Hornsby, Shorter and Rose, Melissa Etheridge, Sheryl Crow, Julia and Maxine Waters, Heartbreakers Mike Campbell and Stan Lynch, Toto's David Paich and Jeff Porcaro, "inofficial Eagle" J.D. Souther, and many others. Except for his greatest hits album, 1995's "Actual Miles," this was also to be the last record Don Henley would publish on Geffen; a label he did not leave without a fight (which alongside the Eagles' reunion, his marriage and his preoccupation with the Walden Woods Project, he would later list as one of the reasons why he did not produce another new album in all of eleven years).
Henley is well-known to be a perfectionist and is sometimes criticized for allegedly overly "slick" productions; a statement usually going hand in hand with accusations of superficiality and occasionally even hypocrisy (his records did, after all, earn him millions; so how serious can he be about his social criticism?). But it doesn't even take a look at his efforts to preserve the environment (in the Walden Woods Project and elsewhere), his recently formed coalition for artists' rights, and his testimony before Congress on a variety of related topics to doubt the accuracy of that assessment. This guy means every word he writes; just listen to his lyrics - and as long as "we got the bully pulpit and the poisoned pen" and "this brave new world [is] gone bad again" ("If Dirt Were Dollars [we'd all be in the black]"), he'll be around to hold up a mirror before our eyes.
MFSL Remaster quality review by Greg Smith @
SoundStage.com:
One of the things you inevitably end up coming to terms with if you're both a rock music fan and an audiophile is that many of the albums you purchase will sound bad. The unfortunate side effect of the close look into a recording your high-resolution system gives you is that errors in production or mastering are thrown right in your face. One of the major schisms that divides my rock music collection is whether a particular CD is suitable for playing on my big home system. Many aren't. For the last few years, the popular solo discs from Don Henley have been banished to my second system: the car stereo. I reach for them when I'm about to hit the road, never when I'm about to sit down on the couch. After seeing how Mobile Fidelity polished up Building the Perfect Beast last year, I couldn't resist trying out their new release of The End of the Innocence.
Starting off with the title track, we find reasonably good sound quality on the original CD, but the piano sounds a bit fake. What's the point of having Bruce Hornsby stop by to play on your album if you're going to make him sound bad? The remastered version really revives the sound of the piano, while taking a bit of unpleasant emphasis off of Henley's vocals. The deep bass is firmed up a touch as well. "How Bad Do You Want It?" asks the second song. Bad enough to spend bigger bucks on a gold CD? If you like this track, that's quite a good idea. The 1989 release features really harsh and grating sound throughout. MoFi's version is considerably smoother, while still having better resolution of detail and slightly tighter bass.
On the old silver CD, "The Last Worthless Evening" opens with a clear acoustic guitar and continues with sound eliciting few complaints. The occasional cymbal crash does sound a bit muffled, though. The newer version restores realism to the drums all around, including a bit more body to the kick on the lower frequency percussion. The guitar is quite a bit more alive, and again there's a welcome bit of smoothing all around.
Even though minutes in New York are the same length as anywhere else (I've checked), "New York Minute" still manages to tell an involving story. The sound quality on this track is probably the best overall. But I noted a bit of compression on the louder parts of the song, where instruments and vocals sound a bit clipped. The remastered version still sounds a little bit limited in that regard, but it's much better. This is particularly impressive when you note that the average volume level of the gold CD is at least 1dB higher. The sense of a physical recording space is broadened, and there's a sharpening of the cymbal hits. You can't help but like the considerable extra power present in the bass guitar notes as well.
"Little Tin God" has always been one of my favorite Henley tracks, despite the fact that I'm normally less impressed with his songs when they're filled with political commentary. I can't help but wonder what rides would be like at the "Six Flags over Jesus" theme park. The upbeat music is hampered a bit by a somewhat flat presentation. The even more enjoyable remastered version presents a wider soundstage, and the guitar solo is really brought forward into your listening room. Instead of drums that are a bit toy-like, there's a realistic edge. And having a bit of extra thump in the bottom end doesn't hurt either.
After comparing the full set of tracks on The End of the Innocence, I find that there's a common pattern that appears. The songs obviously intended for release as singles, like "New York Minute" or "Heart of the Matter," sound much better than those destined for lesser fame. While some of this is inevitably due to more intense production work, the fact that this quality gap narrows considerably on the new version points toward mastering as a major factor. This makes perfect sense. The mastering engineers at Geffen, like those at any large record label, are under considerable pressure. If something is going to be skimped on and not optimized fully, you can bet it's the music predicted to be less popular. Because they release a comparatively small number of discs, Mobile Fidelity can dedicate weeks to a mastering job. The industry standard for this kind of work at a bigger company is at most a couple of days.
When I drag the gold CD of End of the Innocence along into my car, the differences are subtle, except when it comes time to try and put the disc back in the lift-lock jewel box (a dangerous process at highway speeds). It's only when I unleash the CD on more serious equipment that I really appreciate how improved things are sonically. When I spin the audiophile hype wheel for this one, I get back "like a veil was removed" as an accurate description of the upgrade. Thanks to Mobile Fidelity, Don Henley has now made his way back into regular home listening again, and I'm quite pleased with the transition.
Tracklisting:
1. The End Of The Innocence (5:19)
2. How Bad Do You Want It? (3:49)
3. I Will Not Go Quietly (5:45)
4. Last Worthless Evening (6:06)
5. New York Minute (6:39)
6. Shangri-La (4:58)
7. Little Tin God (4:44)
8. Gimme What You Got (6:14)
9. If Dirt Were Dollars (4:37)
10. The Heart Of The Matter (5:24)
Total Time: 53:33
Line-Up:
- Don Henley - drums, vocals, background vocals, harmony vocals
- Timothy Drury - Keyboards, background vocals, harmony vocals
- Edie Brickell - background vocals, harmony vocals
- Mike Campbell - guitar, keyboards
- Valerie Carter - background vocals, harmony vocals
- John Corey - guitar, keyboards
- Sheryl Crow - background vocals
- Charlie Drayton - background vocals, harmony vocals
- Melissa Etheridge - background vocals, harmony vocals
- Michael Fisher - percussion
- Bob Glaub - bass
- Bruce Hornsby - piano, keyboards
- Stanley Jordan - guitar, drums, background vocals, harmony vocals
- Steve Jordan - drums, electric guitar, background vocals, harmony vocals, wah wah guitar
- Jim Keltner - percussion, drums
- Larry Klein - bass
- Danny "Kootch" Kortchmar - guitar, keyboards
- Stan Lynch - percussion, drums
- Steve Madaio - trumpet
- Ivan Neville - background vocals, harmony vocals
- David Paich - piano, strings, keyboards
- Pino Palladino - bass
- Jeff Porcaro - drums
- Axl Rose - background vocals, harmony vocals
- Wayne Shorter - soprano saxophone
- Patty Smyth - background vocals, harmony vocals
- J.D. Souther - background vocals
- Take 6 - background vocals, harmony vocals
- Carmen Twillie - background vocals, harmony vocals
- Waddy Wachtel - acoustic guitar
- Julia Waters - background vocals, harmony vocals
- Maxine Waters - background vocals, harmony vocals
- Jai Winding - keyboards, keyboard bass
