A year after their successful debut album, the Eagles released the concept album Desperado, intent on being taken more seriously as artists.
Initially conceived as an album about anti-heroes, the album turned the Wild West into a metaphor for the rock music industry and society as a whole. Or at least that was the idea. Even the band members admit that the concept was half-baked. As Don Henley put it, “The metaphor was probably a little bullshit. We were in L.A. staying up all night, smoking dope, living the California life, and I suppose we thought it was as radical as cowboys in the old West.”
