Glenn Frey knows the difference between what’s hip for a reason and what isn’t.

Glenn Frey. Singer, songwriter, guitarist, keyboardist and a creative force behind practically all the hits by that ‘70s rock and roll institution—The Eagles.

His latest album, The Allnighter, is a well-rounded display of Frey’s long-established talents. But it by no means sent its composer rocketing into the Hype Land title of Rock and Roll Phenomenon. It’s not obsessive, it’s not extreme. It’s not radical, According to Elektra Asylum—who, after producing Frey’s first solo album No Fun Aloud, passed on the chance to produce his second, Allnigter—it’s "not contemporary enough."

We all know what "contemporary" sounds like.

We know what it looks like, too. Contemporary gets totally contemporary when it’s accompanied by the visually exotic, whether in concerts, or videos, or fan magazine photos or record jackets.

To Glenn Frey, the current propensity toward a marriage between the auditory and the visual might, for the most part, mean the obliteration of music by performance. The music scene is just that—a scene. And with the advent of form over content comes dependence on it. Form that is.

Which is not to put Frey back into the Dark Ages. But if Glenn is involved with visual media in his solo career—he’s released four videos: "Sexy Girl," "Smuggler’s Blues," "The One You Love," and "The Heat is On", as well as having inspired the script for and appeared in a hit T.V. show-it is nonetheless his music which prompted the visual ideas, not the other way around.

But, you say, "Smuggler’s Blues" is a hot song and it’s perhaps the most visual of The Allnighter’s. It naturally lent itself to—indeed inspired—an episode of Miami Vice, NBC’s hit show dedicated to weekly visual seduction by an incessant stream of slick images.

Well sure, but visual accompaniment wasn't a prerequisite for evoking the kind of detailed fantasy inherent in "Smuggler's Blues": rather that fantasy is built into the song by its powerful, barbed lyrics.

The theme of "Smuggler's Blues" (the "politics of contraband") touches on a c^oncern

Close to Frey's own career--that the smuggler becomes a slave to the system. That he has to accept the --in this case, dangerous premise in order to enjoy the bit. Frey's success, on the other hand, illustrates a keen desire for professional independence. He neither wants to deny the premise that Rock and Rollers were ever unconcerned with image, nor does he need personally to buy into it.

How did he get to this lofty position of integrity? In a nutshell, it goes like this: Frey, who grew up in Detroit but headed for California not long out of high school, recorded one album as half of the duo Longbranch~Pennywhistle, before parting ways with the other half, John David Souther. He next found himself performing as Linda Ronstadt's backup rhythm guitarist in 1971. It was on tour with Ronstadt's band that he and the band's drummer, Don Henley, decided to form a group of their own. Hence, the Eagles. More than fifty million records later America knows their tunes as standard bearers of the California Sound. Their hits, classics from "Desperado" to "Hotel California," have included four #1 singles, four #1 albums, and four Grammy award winners.

Frey's role in all this? Aside from co-writing most of the hits, it's generally acknowledged that he and Henley were in somewhat superordinate positions (the coordinators, coaches, what have you), and Henley has called Frey "the glue." It was the release of solo records from each of them that more or less marked the formal dissolution of the Eagles. Yet Frey has steadily refuted any suggestion that the two leaders were the driving forces behind the split. They were just ready to recognize it and move on.

During his decade with the Eagles, Glenn obviously learned the ins and outs of collaboration. As to where that experience has landed him, he said in an interview with Musician: "I've discovered that beating around the bush, tainting, coercing, trying to guide people, is more trouble than it’s worth. Of course, it’s a lot easier now that Imp running my own successful dictatorship as opposed to being in a struggling democracy. One of the reasons life is great right now is because I’m the boss."

Which brings us to those other reasons. His solo career. After No Fun Aloud sold a respectable but not overwhelming 650,000 copies, The Allnighter (which Frey agrees is better) seems to have truly landed him as a serious solo artist. Its success is coupled with the success of his first solo Top 5 hit "The Heat is On" from the soundtrack of Beverly Hills Cop. (Frey, by the way, wrote neither the lyrics nor the music to "The Heat is On." That time it was only his performance.)

The point of going solo after such tremendous success as part of a group? The independence he's basking in just means that he gets to develop as a musician along the path of his choosing. Which is not say that he'll be doing it all by himself. Glenn says he doesn't like to write alone. All the Alinighter songs are co-written with Jack Tempchin. Nor will he be performing alone. This summer's tour’s the first time he's been on the road since 1983, includes headline dates as well as his "Special Guest" appearances with Tina Turner.

The future of his career is wide open. It's his music that is his constant. The point of going solo is not to isolate himself from his contemporaries (He calls "Living in Darkness" "my Prince tune"). But if The Allnighter is any indication of things to come, Frey's contribution to American Pop will continue to rely on music and words to do the representing of what he wants to have represented. His music is accessible. His voice is, at the risk of sounding unforgivably trite, honest.