It's kind of annoying when an old music video I know exists but just doesn't seem to be online. Many acts or labels that went defunct before the age of music videos may not really be motivated to put high quality versions online, and we get that. We have an option for music videos that aren't online - it just says so instead of showing you the embed. We want to list everything, and not everything is online.
But the Eagles? Come on guys. By most accounts, the Eagles have the #2 best selling album of all time (Their Greatest Hits
The thing is, we know they made music videos as recent as 2008, and we know they were some good videos. Who knows what the issue is, but I won't let that stop a good music video relapse post. So today, we're watching an Eagles music video - "Busy Being Fabulous" from 2008, directed by Olaf Heine.
To watch this video you need to go to the only place I could find it, a site called Slack Time. here it is. Thanks Slack Time!
One of the reasons the Eagles do not have a lot of music videos is that they broke up in 1980, before the music video scene really got going. Even so, when they got back together in 1994 for the Hell Freezes Over
The reason for this is probably that the Eagles are not what you'd call a showboatin' band. This is the band whose stage setup for Hell Freezes Ovee was literally five stools in a row. They lost the stools for a few songs, but mostly they just parked it there and went at it. They show up in jeans (and in some cases, a vest) and do their thing. Not exactly the type of band that is music video gold.
So in 2007 when they released Long Road Out Of Eden
One of them happened to turn out awesome. "Busy Being Fabulous" follows a woman who is the embodiment of the person mentioned in the song as "too busy being fabulous" to pay attention to her husband. Most of it is set at a party where she is obstensibly fabulous - talking with people fabulously, etc. Coincidentally, the Eagles are the entertainment, dressed up in matching black sutis. This move takes the pressure off of the Eagles to put on an energetic performance, and they can just slip into party band mode, all in a line. They've been training for this role all of their careers pretty much.
Aside from the party band members, the Eagles let loose a little bit and play other roles at the party. Timothy B. Schmit gets to be a waiter. Glenn Frey is the coolest so he gets to be the bartender. Don Henley is having none of that shit, however. Ever the contrarian, he took one look at the concept of everyone working at the party and decides he's going to be a partygoer .
Then there's Joe Walsh, California easy rock's crazy uncle Joe. Joe Walsh decided he was going to be the bouncer at the party, which is cool and suits him, but he wanted more. He wanted to be a police officer who pulled the fabulous girl and her husband over. Completely inexplicably, he also has a monkey partner dressed in a full police uniform. Don Henley is also in the police car, I guess keeping the monkey company.
I like to imagine, by the way, the video being completely shot and in post production, and then the director gets a call from Joe Walsh at like 4am on a Wednesday saying "I got a monkey! I want to be a police officer with a monkey sidekick or I quit the Eagles".
Most of the video is great, and then the Eagles kind of ruin everything when they are all sitting around a table, after the party, singing the lyrics and gesturing wildly into the air. It's a scene that would make you stop and slowly back away if you happened upon it in your house. Luckily, the rest of the video makes up for it.
This video makes me really dissapointed that the Eagles basically skipped the decades where they would've made music videos, and that to add insult to injury, you can't even find the music videos they did make. We'll always have their chair-bound concerts, however.
