Celebration of "Building the Perfect Beast"

[sodascouts]

I had it listed as November 1, not November 2, but at any rate I'm thinking I should change it now!

[shunlvswx]

Happy 31st Birthday to Building the Perfect Beast.

I think this is my least favorite album. Other than the songs I know, I don't like some of the songs.

[sodascouts]

Meanwhile, I love it!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BTPB!

[shunlvswx]

Happy 32nd Birthday to BTPB. At first I didn't like this album and the album has grown on me a lot. Some of the unknown songs I started to like.

I also hear BTPB, Driving With Your Eyes, You Can't Make Love, You're Not Drinking Enough and Land of the Living a lot on my customize Don Henley Radio station on IHeart Radio. So I basically hear a lot of the songs from the album throughout the week.

[Jonny Come Lately]

Happy 32nd birthday to Building The Perfect Beast! The album that gave us one of Don's greatest and most iconic solo tunes, The Boys Of Summer.

Unfortunately (and I don't want to rain on the parade), I personally think the album itself is a somewhat less than perfect beast - it's one of the most uneven albums I've ever heard. It has a couple of absolutely brilliant songs that are as good as anything Don has ever done - The Boys of Summer and also the beautiful and heartfelt A Month Of Sundays. I also like Not Enough Love In The World and You're Not Drinking Enough a lot. I'm not the biggest fan of All She Wants To Do Is Dance on here, and I feel there's something that prevents Sunset Grill from reaching the heights it should do (I don't know why I feel this - I can't quite put my finger on it), but both are still good songs by all means. Unfortunately, these share a record with substandard songs like Man On A Mission, Driving With Your Eyes Closed and the title track. While I commend Don for writing a song about the perils of genetic modification (far from an obvious topic cover to compared to other social/political themes), the song itself is not very good, and to make matters worse it sounds appallingly dated. The 'building, building' chants actually make me laugh, and not in a good way! You Can't Make Love is okay, although it seems underwhelming after Boys of Summer. Land of the Living is meh, it's not terrible but it doesn't really do anything for me.

Having said this, given the choice between an album like BTPB which I find has a few stinkers but also some really top notch highlights, and an album is just mediocre for the majority of its runtime, I'd take the uneven one! I also really enjoyed hearing Don play Sunset Grill and especially BOS live this summer.

[shunlvswx]

Happy 33rd Birthday to Building The Perfect Beast. One of my favorite albums. This album has really grown on me. I use to hate majority of the album and skip a lot of songs. Now I love those songs.

[WalshFan88]

Great album...

I wish Dirty Laundry was on this album because if it was, all of my favorite Don solo songs would be on one album.

The Boys Of Summer, All She Wants To Do Is Dance, and Dirty Laundry are my favorite Don solo songs.

[shunlvswx]

Happy 34th Birthday to Building the Perfect Beast.

A great album. A lot of great artists and musicians on this album. I still can't believe Lindsey sang and played on this album.

[Ive always been a dreamer]

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO BUILDING THE PERFECT BEAST!!!

To repeat what I've said earlier in this thread, this is one of the most uneven albums of all time to me. I adore some of it, but for every exceptional song on the album, there is, unfortunately, an equally really bad song that I dislike. To me, the album has the best song of Don's solo career - the brilliant masterpiece, The Boys of Summer and the worst, Building the Perfect Beast. Go figure!!!

[shunlvswx]

I don't like BTPB that much, but I don't hate it. Now I don't like Man With a Mission and Land of the Living.