Editing Building the Perfect Beast (section)

==Critical reception==
{{Album ratings
| rev1      = [[AllMusic]]
| rev1Score = {{Rating|4.5|5}}<ref>{{AllMusic|class=album|id=r9246/review}}</ref>
| rev3      = [[Robert Christgau]]
| rev3Score = B<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=Don+Henley|title=Robert Christgau: CG: Don Henley|website=www.robertchristgau.com}}</ref>
}}
Reviewing the album in ''[[Rolling Stone]]'', [[Kurt Loder]] wrote that "''Building the Perfect Beast'' is a meticulously crafted and programmed set of songs about love and politics. The first side is given to personal reflections on love and loss, such as the wistful "Boys of Summer." Side two is more issue-oriented, tackling subjects from genetic engineering ("Building the Perfect Beast") to America's reckless foreign policy ("All She Wants to Do Is Dance"). The album's longest and most ambitious piece, "Sunset Grill," describes in disturbingly vivid images a character's sense of entrapment in an evil, convulsive metropolis: "You see a lot more meanness in the city/It's the kind that eats you up inside/Hard to come away with anything that feels like dignity."<ref>{{citation |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-best-albums-of-the-eighties-20110418/don-henley-building-the-perfect-beast-20110329|title=Don Henley: Building the Perfect Beast|date=16 November 1989|accessdate=21 June 2014}}</ref> The magazine placed the album at No. 73 on its 1989 list of the "100 Best Albums of the Eighties".<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-best-albums-of-the-eighties-20110418/don-henley-building-the-perfect-beast-20110329|title=100 Best Albums of the Eighties|magazine=Rolling Stone|date=16 November 1989}}</ref>

Reviewing retrospectively for [[AllMusic]], critic Vik Iyengar has written of the album, "After experimenting with synthesizers and a pop sound on his solo debut, Don Henley hits the mark on his sophomore release, ''Building the Perfect Beast''. This album established Henley as an artist in his own right after many successful years with the [[Eagles (band)|Eagles]], as it spawned numerous hits."<ref>{{citation |url=http://www.allmusic.com/album/building-the-perfect-beast-mw0000650250|title=Building the Perfect Beast|accessdate=21 June 2014}}</ref>