The Allnighter (album)

When Frey was asked about his song writing partnership with Jack Tempchin, he said at the time that "It’s funny, there are only those certain people where things click — at least for me. He’s very free. I’ll just run some soul licks by him, or I’ll ring him something like The Allnighter, which originally was just about staying up all night. But then we started talking about it and Jack says, ‘Staying up all night can’t play over three or four verses. What if the Allnighter was a guy?’ So, we made him into some woman’s every-guy."[1] The lyrics of "Better in the U.S.A" are opposed to the Soviet Union.[2]

In a contemporary review for The Village Voice, music critic Robert Christgau gave The Alnighter a "C" and panned it as a "smarmy piece of sexist pseudosoul".[2] In a retrospective review for The Rolling Stone Album Guide (1992), Mark Coleman gave the album two out of five stars and wrote that it "glistens with synthesized oomph, but the sugar coating doesn't sit well on Frey's mannered white R&B loverman act."[3] On the other hand, AllMusic's William Ruhlmann retrospectively gave it four-and-a-half stars and said that it departs from the "old Eagles sound" of Frey's last album for a "bluesy, rocking feel."[4]

All songs by Glenn Frey and Jack Tempchin, except where noted.

Additional track

• Producers – Allan Blazek and Glenn Frey (Tracks 1-10); Barry Beckett (Tracks 2, 3 & 8).
• Recorded and Mixed by Allan Blazek
• Second Engineers – Ray Blair and Steve Melton
• Assistant Engineers – Lee Daley, Pete Greene and Rich Markowitz.
• Art Direction – Jeff Adamoff
• Illustration – Dave Sizer
• Photography – Jim Shea
• Management – The Fitzgerald Hartley Co.

• List of albums released in 1984