Lefsetz: The Album of the Year for 2015 is…

So I’m driving to Capitol  Records thinking about who’s in my rearview mirror…

Not literally, although traffic was squirrel, with the Vine exit closed, but figuratively…Decades have gone by and what once was isn’t. The music train keeps rolling along, but the most interesting thing I read this week was Tad Friend‘s article about Mosaic and Netscape‘s Marc Andreessen in the New Yorker. Silicon Valley wants to change the world, Hollywood just wants to get rich.

And after parking my car in the back lot – it’s all about parking in Los Angeles – I take the elevator up to the top where Toni escorts me into Capitol CEO Steve Barnett‘s office where he and Ambrosia are listening to a record, not a word being said, Steve staring rapturously at the wall.

This obviously wasn’t done for me, I caught them in a moment. And what was playing over the speakers was…SPECTACULAR!

So I go from caring not a whit about the music business to being totally riveted, feeling that I’m back to where I once belonged.

And when the track finishes Steve tells me it’s the album of the year, which sounds reasonable to me, since this is the guy who built Sam Smith in the U.S., and he’s going to do his best to deliver this 67 year old another hit.

Huh?

Now I’m completely confused. So I ask “Who is this?”

DON HENLEY!

I was completely flummoxed. I’m a fan, you’d figure I’d know his voice anywhere. But the room was vast, with the B&W speakers against the far wall and very little sound-absorbing material, and I figured it had to be someone new.

But it wasn’t.

Henley told me years ago that he was working on a new album. At this point I figured it’d never come out. After all, even Paul McCartney can’t have a hit. Tom Petty ramps up publicity but after a week, no one cares. But one listen through this track and I was hooked. It was the lyrics, sung in a plaintive voice Henley owns the patent on, I couldn’t get them out of my head.

Ain’t that the truth, especially as you get older. When you leave the schoolyard behind. It’s what people say that you can’t get over.

Not that this was the agenda for our lunch. But as we walked to Katsuya, as Steve told me about the new Capitol Records, I couldn’t get the Henley track out of my mind.

How could it be a Baby Boomer could write a song encapsulating truth in a way no one younger seems to be able to, all the while singing mellifluously with changes that resonate?

We went back to the building and I sampled the rest of the record.

This is the Eagles album you’ve been waiting for.

But is anybody waiting for an Eagles LP?

The truth is we’re waiting for music that speaks to our hearts, about the human condition, that makes us feel connected as opposed to alone, that we hum in our head as we’re elated and depressed, that rides shotgun in this crazy adventure we call life. That’s how the Eagles got so damn big to begin with.

The album’s not coming out for months, and I can’t predict radio success.

But I do know someone who cares, who knows it’s all about what’s in the grooves as opposed to the sponsorship deal, dug down deep in an effort to get it right and he did!

P.S. All you Eagles and Henley haters can hold your breath, put your fingertips away, because the truth is in the modern world hate is irrelevant, it’s all about love. No one cares that you pooh-pooh this or that, all we care is that someone loves something.

And if enough people do, you have success.