Actual Miles: Henley's Greatest Hits - Don Henley [CD]

Just as Don Henley's work with the Eagles in the 1970s chronicled a culture that was rapidly spinning out of control, his '80s output cataloged and criticized a decade of greed, cruelty, and prurient interest in the misfortune of others. But this is music, not journalism, and despite the overt seriousness of such songs as "Dirty Laundry," "All She Wants to Do Is Dance," "The Boys of Summer," and especially the somber, elegiac "The End of the Innocence," Henley's field reports were tuneful in the extreme. The two new tracks on Actual Miles--"The Garden of Allah" and "You Don't Know Me at All"--didn't quite click, but otherwise this greatest-hits package couldn't be more solid. --Daniel Durchholz