Don Henley’s ‘Building the Perfect Beast’ turns 40

Nov. 19 marks the 40th anniversary of Don Henley’s sophomore solo album, Building the Perfect Beast, the follow-up to his 1982 solo debut, I Can’t Stand Still.

The album, which had the Eagles rocker working with guitarist Danny Kortchmar, as well as Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench and Stan Lynch of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, peaked at #13 on the Billboard 200 chart. It spawned four top-40 singles, including “The Boys of Summer,” which hit #5 on the Billboard Hot 100, and earned Henley a Grammy.

The song’s success can be partially credited to its video, featuring Henley singing on the back of a truck, which got a huge amount of play on MTV.

Craig Marks, co-author of I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution, tells ABC Audio that despite the video’s success — it won Video of the Year at the 1985 MTV VMAs — Henley was “a reluctant participant in the music video revolution.”

“I think Hanley said something in his acceptance speech like, ‘I just was on the back of a flatbed pickup truck, lip-synching, and I really didn’t do anything else.’ And it’s true, he didn’t,” Marks shares. “But it managed to turn Don Henley into a pop star, which is the power that MTV had in 1984 and onwards.”

Thanks to “The Boys of Summer” and the album’s other hits — “All She Wants To Do Is Dance,” which went to #9, “Not Enough Love in the World” and “Sunset Grill” — the record was a huge commercial success for Henley and has been certified three-times Platinum by the RIAA.

Henley recently celebrated Building the Perfect Beast’s anniversary with a new remastered edition of the album, available digitally and as a two-LP set.