Actual Miles: Greatest Hits (1995)
1. Dirty Laundry
2. The Boys of Summer
3. All She Wants to Do is Dance
4. Not Enough Love in the World
5. Sunset Grill
6. The End of the Innocence
7. The Last Worthless Evening
8. New York Minute
9. I Will Not Go Quietly
10.The Heart of the Matter
11.The Garden of Allah
12.You Don't Kow Me at All
13.Everybody Knows
Generally, Greatest Hits packages make
me incredibly skeptical. Especially when an artist only has three
albums and he (or his record company) seems to be stalling when there's
no new product to placate the accountants, or worse, waiting out a
lawsuit. In Don Henley's case though, this one is pretty well
justified. His second and third solo albums alone were chocked with
about 50% hits on each, so there's not really any filler here.
He wisely only goes with Dirty Laundry from his first release,
the uneven I Can't Stand Still, and
all of the other songs that have been released before are known by most.
The three new songs are quite interesting and well done as well.
The Garden of Allah is a bit of a weird one. He definitely had
some fun writing this one. Musically, it sounds a bit like the
aforementioned Dirty Laundry. The lyrics (I think) seem to be
about Satan coming to try to destroy a bit of mankind, but is
discouraged that mankind seem to be doing fine in this department with
out any of his help. The "dialogue" in the song is a bit much, but doesn't
take too much away from the vibe.
You Don't Know Me at All is the other original that has been a
bit overlooked. It's one of Henley's "rockers" (if there ever was such
a thing) and deserved a bit more attention than it got. Everybody
Knows is a Leonard Cohen track that gets done with gentle care here
and it's more of an asset than a liability, even if it pales compared to the
other two new songs.
Great package, but at the rate Henley puts out solo material, don't
expect a "volume 2" anytime soon.
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