Country music honors the year’s best tonight

Among the evening’s many performances is an appearance by the Eagles, the popular country-rock group of the 1970s whose songs have continued to sell in the intervening decade as the Eagles have gone through a cycle of reunion tours. The band has been around long enough to profit from the many changes in musical format. It’s conceivable that a teenage Eagles fan could have purchased “Take it Easy” as a 45-rpm single in 1972 from a record store on the corner.

He then bought it again as part of the “The Eagles” album. Or maybe he got it “free” for joining the Columbia Record Club. He might also splurge for an 8-track or a cassette of “The Eagles” to play in his car. A few years later, he might buy “The Eagles Greatest Hits,” one of the best-selling albums of all time.

By the late 1980s, a 30-something Eagles buff might feel compelled to upgrade to a CD because he thinks they will “last forever.” Feeling flush and in his 50s and oh-so-21st-century, that same fan might then download the song “Take it Easy” from iTunes coming full circle to the purchase of the same “single” he bought in 1972. To market their latest album, the Eagles have signed an exclusive deal with the world’s largest big-box retailer.

You can’t find it in a record store even if you could find a record store. Few shows seem to revel in stereotype-casting as much as “Clean House” (10 p.m., Style). Or have as much fun doing it. The show features a foursome of experts who help households that have become dysfunctionally cluttered. The team consists of Niecy Nash, who plays the warm but sassy black fairy godmother to the hilt.

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