REVIEWS:
Steely Dan don't get a monumental amount of respect these days, not only because of teenyboppers who're pissed that "that band that nobody has heard of" stole the Album Of The Year Grammy from Eminem and N'Sync, but also because of critics who consider them one of the reasons that punk had to happen, along with disco, progressive rock and Pink Floyd. The problem is that on the surface, their music is the epitome of "easy listening," often employing an incredibly smooth, meticulous jazz-rock backing and arrangements that are, for lack of another description, easy to listen to - something which music critics don't want to hear mixed in with their Zep, because like it doesn't rawk, dude.
It doesn't help that the "band" is essentially a duo, consisting of witmasters Donald Fagen and Walter Becker and whatever studio wizards they happened to cram into the recording studio. Beneath the glossy surface, however, the songs are actually incredibly well-written, with consistently smartassed lyrics that are almost impossible to understand at times but undeniably impressive nonetheless. Their music definitely is not for anyone - in fact, I've rarely ever met anyone who doesn't either love the band or despise them - no one sits on the fence. Except for me, of course, since I'm the most objective reviewer on the planet, besides Chuck Eddy of course. Onwards!
--Rich Bunnell
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COMMENTS
Reviewing Steely Dan's albums and actually rating them on a 1-10 scale? That seems like a music critic's Mt. Everest to me. Their friggin' ALL 9's or 10's, and then you have to get into incrediblely detailed nuancing to point out the differences. I like your writing though, enjoyable reading. I will post some comments when I have time. How long has this page been up? I found it by accident.
Yo Rich,
When ya gonna review Everythnig Must Go. I look forward to criticizing your review again. J If you want to, you can change my email links to this address ([email protected]), since I’m no longer at sultan.com. I still enjoy reading your stuff here now and then, even though I’ve read ‘em before.
I wish people would stick to reviewing the albums instead of reviewing each other's reviews.
(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
Steely Dan's debut album is touted by Dan fans as "the underdeveloped one, nothing compared to what was to come" and by Dan haters as "the one where they were an actual band, now excuse me while I get back to my Kiss" but I'm going to have to take issue with each statement. The "actual band" remark is harder to dispute, since at this point they were, without question, a full band, but Becker and Fagen are clearly the key players already, since they cowrote every single song, the fascist dictators that they are. As for the first remark, I can't see how the sound of this album is too incredibly different from what was to come - the songs are based on band-like dynamics like guitar solos and Latin rhythms (both of which would soon either fall into the background or completely out of sight), but the lyrics and arrangements are pure Dan through-and-through, though the music isn't exactly slick cocktail jazz like the stuff you'd find on Aja or something.
The one hugely distinguishing quality between this and the band's later stuff, at least to me, is that this is pretty much their one album which aims for pure catchiness without any lofty ambitions backing it up, and the fact that the two hit singles are probably their two biggest radio hits definitely reflects this fact. The six-minute "Do It Again," which grooves along on a Santana-like rhythm, features a great vocal performance by Fagen and a memorable "you go back, Jack, do it again" chorus, and the even more infamous "Reelin' In The Years" chronicles a father's advice with his daughter at different points in her life, but it's not like you'll notice that over the endlessly-repeated, catchy-as-hell chorus and the repetitively-groovy guitar solo. Also poppy are a few CSN-like ditties ("Dirty Work," "Midnight Cruiser" and "Brooklyn") sung by mouthpiece David Palmer, who has an annoyingly lite-rock voice, but the songs are pretty decent and this would turn out to be his only album with the band anyway.
The rest of the album is remarkably consistent, perhaps not reaching any amazing heights but definitely no embarassing lows either. "Change Of The Guard" is one of the few songs in the Dan's ouvere which can be called a straightforward, catchy pop song (it even has a "na na na na na na na na" chorus!), "Only A Fool Would Say That" is another catchy little tune with a great vocal set to a Latin rhythm, and the multi-part closer "Turn That Heartbeat Over Again" switches melodies so many times that it sounds like some kind of miniature rock opera, but without the stupid pinball-playing blind kid. There's also this really neat song named "Kings" which mentions King Richard and King John, which to critics thus automatically makes it a Nixon-Kennedy song by default, except the lyrics don't really have anything to do with them as opposed to, you know, the actual King Richard and King John. Still, you never know - even at this early point, Becker and Fagen were already being as bizarre and elliptical as they possibly could, the smartasses.
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(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
This album is essentially the beginning of the Dan sound that transformed them into critics' darlings, mainly because they abandoned the shorter, more commercial sound that put them on the map and reinvented themselves as longform jazz-rock troublemakers. I know you're used to ten songs or more - sorry, we only have eight. (Okay, that was bad. Sorry.) To mess with the record company the band left the album cover completely unfinished, using a set of sketchy proofs for the official cover, and released the one song on the album with the word "fuck" in the lyrics as the first single. On top of all that, David Palmer was fired following a show in Phoenix, leaving the more warbly and less photogenic Fagen as the band's sole vocalist (though he sang on both of the last album's hits, so I doubt anyone noticed or cared). The band's label wasn't exactly thrilled, and when they weren't bowled over by the material on the album itself, they didn't promote it as heavily as they did the debut, resulting in somewhat of a commercial slump for the Dans.
This lack of promotion is one of the stupider record company decisions I've ever heard - sure, the band reestablished their commercial success through their later albums, but at the cost of what is possibly their best album slipping through the cracks and lying in the "critic's darling" limbo of musical history. This is all that a Dan album needs to be - catchy, cynical, clever, creative, and lots of other words that begin with "c" - every single melody is among the band's best, and it's all set to some of the sharpest lyrics that Becker & Fagen ever wrote. Things get off to a rather simplistic start with the exciting boogie "Bodhisattva," a groove that makes fun of the whole Eastern religious revival of the late '60s. The songs move into a more loungy and sophisticated groove, however, as the album progresses, with smooth jazz like the anti-gambling "Your Gold Teeth" and typical Dan material like "Razor Boy," with a Fagen vocal performance that just begs to be made fun of.
It's really the second half of the album that justifies its status as a classic album, though, with the poppy, horn-spiked "My Old School" and the single "Show Biz Kids," an ultra-repetitive love-it-or-hate-it groove with lyrics detailing the split between the rich and the poor over an ongoing chant of "You're going to Lost Wages" (a tounge-in-cheek parody of Las Vegas). "Pearl Of The Quarter" sounds like a simple, pretty love ballad until you realize that it's about a prostitute, and the almost-epic closer "King Of The World" is easily the most cynical on the album, matching lyrics about being the sole survivor in a post-apocalyptic world ("I'm reading last year's papers/Although I don't know why/Assassins cons and rapers/Might as well die") to a top-notch uptempo melody. It's really sad that through a misunderstanding of the Dan's style, their best album ended up being the least-well-known in their canon, but at least it provides a "fan favorite" for snooty people like me who pretend to hate mainstream music when that's actually the only thing they listen to.
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COMMENTS
A full 10, huh? I can agree with that, although I don't like the individual songs on this album quite as much as the ones on Pretzel Logic, and this is not the only Dan record I would give that rating (but you're obviously a more experienced critic than I). I can agree with you inasmuch as Countdown to Ecstasy is not as "schizophrenic" (as you put it) as its follow-up, but I think the varied song-for-song quality of Pretzel Logic is the very trait that gives that album its own supreme dominion over most other records ever recorded, and that includes the rest of the Dan discography. Still, Countdown is undeniably an incredible LP, with an extraordinarily fluent rhythmic momentum that carries one song to the next. "Bodhisattva" kicks up serious amounts of bluesy tunage, and it is a fantastic opener--it really got my attention the first time I gave this CD a whirl, and that's just what an opening song should do, engage the listener in the album. The rest of side one is likable-enough quiet lounge, although it doesn't really blow me away or anything. Side two has considerably better songs in my opinion, starting out with the infectiously groovy and brilliantly witty "Show Biz Kids"--one of my favorite Dan tunes. "My Old School" is the frisky single with the flamboyant horn section, and "Pearl of the Quarter" is the very pretty but most poignant "love song" with its own perverse Steely Dan twist. A groundbreaking effort indeed, and a must-have if you crave this pompously collegiate jazz-rock sort of thang.
(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
The Dan toned down their ambitions here and compartmentalized their sound into standard three-minute pop songs (as opposed to five or six-minute pop songs...Countdown was edgy for Steely Dan, but it was no Beefheart), resulting in an album that sounds kind of like a combination of the first two. The shorter, more poppy running times of Can't Buy are combined with the more adventurous inclinations of Countdown, and the resulting album turned out to be one of their biggest commercial successes. This was mostly on the strength of the hit single "Rikki Don't Lose That Number," a supposed ode to Rick Derringer (most well-known for releasing the hit "Rock And Roll Hootchie-Coo" and producing "Weird Al"s first six albums) that sounds a bit too much like easy-listening at times, but is still incredibly catchy and has a wonderfully developing vocal hook, so you won't catch me dissin' on it. I think it was the band's biggest chart hit (#3), but I could be totally wrong.
The album is probably the Dan's most schizophrenic release, with a groovy funk tune ("Night By Night") a tender, bizarre ballad ("Any Major Dude Will Tell You") and an instrumental Duke Ellington cover ("East St. Louis Toodle-Oo") all on just the first side of the album. They're all great, though, especially considering that they're mixed in with some of Becker & Fagen's best songs ever - "Barrytown" makes fun of intolerant smalltown Americans over a flowing piano melody (and was rather blatantly ripped off for XTC's "Standing In For Joe," even though Colin Moulding claims never to have heard the Dan song), and "Parker's Band" is a rollicking and exciting tribute to Charlie Parker, and one of the last Dan songs that sounds like the product of a full band. The title track, though, is far and away the best song on the album, taking a somewhat traditional blues melody and dressing it up with fantastic vocal harmonies in the chorus - and the weirdest thing of all is that the song is allegedly about a guy who travels back in time to meet Napoleon but ends up getting hung during the French Revolution for his odd 20th-century clothes ("Where did you get those shoes" - one of the most wonderful inversions of a blues cliche I've ever heard). What a great song.
The only thing that keeps the album from attaining the gleeful Dannish perfection of its predecessor is that it has a few short throwaways that don't mesh in with the rest of the songs - "Through With Buzz," "Monkey In My Soul" and "With A Gun" all have great melodies, but they seem incredibly slight compared to the stronger material and easily could've been fleshed out a little more by the band. Still, this is one of the band's best albums, and probably the most through-and-through enjoyable one that they ever released. If you want to jump straight into the Dan's sound instead of starting simple with Can't Buy A Thrill, this is a great first purchase.
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COMMENTS
[email protected] (John Schlegel)
This is Steely Dan's best if you ask me. I know, nobody asked me. But this is really a phenomenal record, and one of my favorites. Song for song, a lot of different ideas are tried; but the album still functions beautifully as a whole--an aesthetically pleasing collage of sound, a mind-boggling journey through a vast array of stimulating rhythms. Every song has a great melody. "Night by Night" is a commanding soul tune, "Barrytown" a happy, foot-tapping, piano-led piece. Side two is a little eclectic and may take some time to grow on you, but I just love it. "Through with Buzz" is a short, amazingly orchestrated divvy that flashes by you like a bolt of lightening and then leaves you saying, "Wow! What was that weird song? That was COOL!!" And I personally adore "With a Gun," a shuffling story-song that sounds too timeless to be twangy--and, it's amusing to sing along to: "Did you paaayy the other maaann with pieeece in your hand/and leave hiiiiim lyin' in the rain?" But my favorite track here is probably "Any Major Dude Will Tell You" (on side one), the deceptively banal down-on-your-luck ballad with an irresistable hook. The lyrics stem from Steely Dan's requisite, stuck-up neo-Beatnik themes; but hey, this is all in good fun. With Pretzel Logic, we really start to see Dan's signature formula fall together--simple rhythms spiced with layers of tasteful instrumentation and vocals. This is true ear candy. A perfect 10!
(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
After the Pretzel Logic tour, Becker and Fagen, like the pansy sissies that they were and still are, decided that they wanted to become a studio-only perfection unit and stopped touring entirely. Most of their original band was cast off in favor of professional studio musicians, and much more effort was put into making the listening experience smooth-playing and multi-layered. Unfortunately, the album's recording and mixing ran into some thorny patches and the album didn't turn out sounding at all like the Dastardly Duo intended it, and for that reason neither of them have listened to the album in the 26 years (and counting) since its release, not even when they had to reminisce about the material for the 2000 remaster series liner notes. I admire any band where its members aren't conceited enough to listen to their own material (as opposed to Prince, whom I've heard listens to nothing but his own material, the prick), but really, Katy Lied is a perfectly fine-sounding album, even by today's audiophile standards.
Becker and Fagen's lyrics have become a bit more abstract this time around, all of them focusing on fictional characters and their individual situations rather than any sort of broad topic. Once you actually understand what the hell Fagen is talking about, it really becomes clear that they were a couple of really screwed-up individuals. "Everyone's Gone To The Movies," you ask? It's about a pedophile who shows porn movies to youngsters while their parents are away. And it's set to happy Caribbean music, which makes it all the more disturbing (if hilarious in its own little screwed-up way). "Chain Lightning"? It's a pretty normal-sounding groove, but it's about a couple of guys who participate in a fascist rally during the years before World War II. This kind of stuff is fairly typical for the whole album and a lot of the Dan's later music, disturbing lyrics set to catchy, infectious beats - it gets on the radio, and that's all that matters. Even the radio hit "Dr. Wu" is about a girl who gets addicted to dope and caught up in an unfavorable love triangle as a result. That sax solo's really kickin', though!
The music on this album is a bit weaker than the music on the last two, but it still grooves along nicely and has enough hooks for anyone to get by without having to consult a dictionary between every chorus. "Black Friday" is the most uptempo and catchy tune (dig that keyboard groove!), and it's followed up by the addictingly melancholy "Bad Sneakers," a death row inmate's rumination on his former life of crime and debauchery. Doobie Brother Michael McDonald sings on the chorus to the incredibly pessimistic "Any World (That I'm Welcome To)" without making it sound too much like "It Keeps You Runnin'", and Becker and Fagen follow up "Your Gold Teeth" from Countdown with a sequel that ditches the original's energy in favor of a more atmospheric piano ballad backing, and it works. Some of the songs like the clunky, musically awkward "Throw Back The Little Ones" don't live up to the standards set by the other tunes, but it's no biggie - the album is just as consistent as almost any you'll find in the Dan's catalogue, and there's a picture of an insect on the front, so you really have no reason not to buy this.
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(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
The Dan lost a bit of their critical fire with this album, mostly because it's probably their first album that concentrates almost entirely on the lyrics as opposed to backing up the lyrics with a solid musical backbone. Oh, sure, the songs are mostly catchy and have distinctive hooks, but for once they take a backseat to the lyrics, easily some of the most dour, cynical, even harsh words Becker and Fagen have ever penned. For once they're downright mean as opposed to disturbing - "Tell Me Everything" for one concerns a husband who discovers that his wife has been cheating on him and threatens her to relate every filthy detail of what they did together, and after she finishes telling him, demands that she do all of the same things to him. Yikes! The music is pretty nondescript and hookless, too, so there's nothing else to grab onto amidst all of the venom being spewed from Donald Fagen's mouth.
They manage to save the album with a few great pop hooks, however - the opener "Kid Charlemagne" is a funky ode to a San Francisco drug dealer with a cool '70s street vibe (I'm not sure why they chose the name "Kid Charlemagne," though - he was educated, perhaps? Ah, screw it, they're not telling) and the radio classic "Don't Take Me Alive" tells stories of urban violence over a tense beat and a wonderfully-harmonized chorus, with some distorted guitar thrown into the intro, something not common considering the usual perfectionism of the Dansters. Plus, there are a couple of points of relief from all of the lyrical muck - "The Caves Of Altamira" is a light, catchy brass-spiked pop tune comparing the wonders of a child's imagination to prehistoric cave paintings in Africa, and "The Fez" is a repetitive yet slinky groove about safe sex ("Ain't never gonna do it without the Fez on"), probably the first song of its kind. It's kind of stupid, but it's at least funny.
Even these songs, however, are offset by the brash cynicism emanated by every single other song - "Sign In Stranger" is a reggae-tinged pop tune that details a far-off planet where criminals are sent to kill one another, and the title track, probably the most dire of all, tells the story of two Puerto Ricans who learn the horrors of big city America when they immigrate to New York - and once again, the lyrics are told over almost nothing but a spare, distant piano beat, so they're a bit tough to pass over. For the most part, the music on the album is good, but aside from the first three songs ("Charlemagne," "Altamira" and "Don't Take Me Alive") they don't really contain any huge hooks that justify their existence outside of harsh bitchy outlets for Becker and Fagen. Due to its relentless cynicism, the album does sounds really cool on first listen, but it wears kind of thin thereafter. Usually, the Dan are able to back up their lyrical sentiments with solid music, here they go kind of overboard in the "we're smart" department.
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COMMENTS
First of all this album is not lacking in hooks and the "Caves Of Altamira" is not a light, catchy pop tune. I would describe it as a pop-rock epic served up with a majesty to be revered.. As a matter of fact that's the tone of the entire album. There's a majesty to the sound and song arrangements of the entire Royal Scam album.
Every tune is perfect except for "The Fez" and "The Royal Scam", so I'll give the album a score of 8.5 .
I'd have to say your review is the real ROYAL SCAM
And lastly, The Caves of Altamira are in Northern Spain, not Africa.
For the most part, your assessment of this album is dead-on; however, in addition to the strength of the first three tracks, I would say that "Haitian Divorce" merits a mention. It has a terrific island groove, the chord changes are unpredictable, and the fadeout can only be described as Laura Nyro-chords set to Caribbean rhythms.
-Ari Lauren
Music reviewer, PopMatters.com
(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
On this album, easily the band's most notorious, Becker and Fagen cast off any remaining delusions of being a "rock band"(not that very many were left) and dove completely into an incredibly smooth and polished lounge jazz style. The immense amount of work that went into this album demonstrated that our favorite crimefighting duo had reached some sort of new maniacal height of nitpicky perfectionism; the list of players on the album is about three miles long (including Weather Report member Wayne Shorter on sax) and during the sessions the duo often auditioned six or seven different instrumentalists before they found the instrumental part or solo that they felt was right for the song in question. In short, people who call Steely Dan's music a shallow computer product have no better argument than this album, and I'd be inclined to jump on the anti-Dan bandwagon with pitchfork in hand were the album not so darned good.
Both the tone and lyrics on the album are considerably softer than what the Dan had purveyed up to this point - the music is smoothly-textured and incredibly easy on the ears, and the lyrics focus on more heartfelt and caring topics while still retaining most of the sharp wit of the Dan's previous work. The first three songs probably provide the best example of this shift - both "Black Cow" and "Deacon Blues" have exquisite melodies with tasteful female backing vocalists, and even though the former is about a cheating wife and the latter about bohemian art-house losers, it's okay, the boys are fine with all of that, do what you want, we don't care. The eight-minute title track is probably the biggest sign of the album's meticulously-constructed nature, moving through several distinct sections and blending together Eastern elements with a typical but impressive-sounding lounge-jazz backdrop - it takes a while to sound like anything but elevator muzak, but when it grabs hold it's froggin' great.
The second half of the album is lesser and more typical of the Dan, but still contains a couple of fantastic poppers with the bizarrely-arranged, twisted brassy pop tune "Peg" (about a porn star, in case you care) and the watch-out-she's-back closer "Josie," the only song on the album where guitar plays a major role (which leads me to wonder exactly what the hell Walter Becker was doing during the sessions besides sitting on a golden throne and laughing maniacally). The other two tunes don't really register, with "Home At Last" stomping over most of its decent melody with mountains of brass, and "I Got The News" being a bit too meandering, but they're still basically pretty good tunes. This album definitely has its detractors, and it's not hard to understand why (sometimes it sounds like a smartly-written version of Kenny G.) but underneath the smoothly-processed layers the songwriting is still quite good - it just takes some getting used to in this modern '70s-hating world.
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COMMENTS
about the only Steely Dan album (aside from the greatest hits) I can sit through. "josie" and "deacon blues" are classics, with "peg" and "black cow" just behind. the title track is pretty dull, though. I give it 2^3.
Listening to it as I type this. There are a few keyboard noises on top, but basically Aja (the song) fades out on a drum solo. How Seventies is that?
(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
Steely Dan took three years to follow up Aja thanks to a legal dispute over their material when their record label ABC was bought out by MCA (Tom Petty was involved in the same legal battle), and when they finally resurfaced they released....an album that sounds an awful lot like Aja. The thing is, even though on the surface the previous album was a smooth easy-listening record, the slick textures masked a set of strong melodies that kept it from the dregs of adult contemporary rubbish. The problem with this album, on the other hand, is that it doesn't just sound like easy listening muzak - it is easy-listening muzak. The arrangements are far more simple than those on the previous album but the running times are just as long, and the whole album drags on with almost no particularly captivating melodies thrown in to keep the whole thing from becoming a dull blob of boredom.
To the Dan's credit, there's some strong material - the album is held up by a strong opener with great backing vocals and a slow-grooving slick vibe ("Babylon Sisters") and has a couple of other pretty good tracks in the slinky "Time Out Of Mind" and the single "Hey Nineteen," an almost offputtingly-slick thirtysomething's ode to a younger woman he just can't have. The rest, though, is either marred by loooooong running times ("Glamour Profession," with a neat offsetting disco-ish feel that would have sounded great at four minutes long, but not at seven-and-a-half) or ploddingly slow and featureless song structures that completely mask any witty lyrical prose that Becker and Fagen might have penned (the title track and "My Rival") - lyrics are an integral part of the band's appeal, but I'm sorry, I just don't give a crap about them when they're not backed up by any sort of solid musical backing at all. This is an okay album for late-night listening and all, but so is Aja, and that one's a hell of a lot stronger and actually sticks in your head. This stuff just kind of floats by.
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[email protected] (Nick Kiefer)
Ok, finally scammed some time to comment on one of your nicely articulated reviews. I noticed you posted my initial comments born of having stumbled onto this page, thanks.
Niceties aside now, the gloves need to come off when ANYONE rates the Gaucho album a 5. Yes, you articulately state your opinion, the problem is that your opinion is wrong. Sure, Gaucho may not measure up when compared to Aja (maybe you wrote the review back in 1980?) or Pretzel Logic, but it certainly holds its own as a musical work, and even as a Dan submission. It is definitely more meandering than some of the earlier works, and ok, as you mention "slick" (though as you mention, Aja is quite slick also). But the mood and the ambiance of the tracks DO stay with you, and that's part of why it holds it's own. I mean, if you rate Gaucho 5, what do you rate any other group's 1980 submission? We're talking Steely Dan here. Maybe you can rate it a 7 if you are comparing it to earlier Dan works (and using the scale you've used when rating previous albums), but if you are holding it up objectively as a musical submission? It's still 9 or 10.
Time out of Mind? Glamour Profession? Come on man, these alone stimulate musical synapses in the brain in the way that only Dan brilliance can. The stony allusions, the euphoric fogginess... you're not going to get that off a Bee Gee's album. It's about feel and mood-creation; who cares if it's uhh, what did you say? I guess you gave the impression that it was simplistic -- allusions to muzac and "no solid musical backing." I'm sorry, I was going to acknowledge your assessment before poking holes in it, but I can't. You are simply wrong. The chord progressions, bass riffs, and creative arrangements, not to mention the usual cool use of horns say "you are wrong, Bunnell." Even if you're spoiled by Steely Dan. And if you think Glamour Profession is too long, you aren't really paying attention to the lyrical guitar solo that so creatively dances through the last couple minutes of nuanced, rolling, midnight sheen. The song actually evokes a glamourous, risky "dark side" feel.
It is interesting though how thinking about Gaucho may not give one as much anticipation of pleasure as when thinking of some of the earlier works. However, once listening, one is transported to that ambiguous psychedelic realm that only a rare number of groups can concoct, Steely Dan being one of the most adept at doing so. It's almost as if the subtleties of the tunes, Babylon Sisters being a good example, lull the listener into thinking "simplistic" or "unexciting." But the bottom line is the listen. Is your mood changed? Are you infused by a different emotional state? Of course.
Not sure what standard of measure you use, Mr. Bunnell, but I think maybe you're spoiled by the genius of Steely Dan. By the time Gaucho came out, your Dan critique was bucking up against stratospheric excellence.
Bottom line, you're wrong on this one. I give Gaucho an 8 (and Aja a 9). Thanks for reading, -Nick
(reviewed by Rich Bunnell)
Steely Dan disbanded following the release of Gaucho, but the band's spirit lived on over the following two decades since Becker and Fagen collaborated on one another's solo albums, few and far between as those were (Fagen released two, while Becker managed to shove out only one thanks in part to a heroin addiction). They officially reformed in 1995 for, of all things, a national tour (go figure), and after they churned out the obligatory live album (Alive In America) they went back to the studio with about a zillion session players and released this, their first official studio album in two decades. Lots of people act like the band completely ignored any passing trends and continued making typical Dan music like the '80s and '90s never happened, but in truth the album is quite different from any of their '70s classics (or non-classics). The music is almost entirely based on drum-and-bass grooves, with the tunes carried by Fagen's vocal melodies, and as a testament to the Dan's technophilism, the sound is incredibly clean, almost to the point of sterility.
Even though a lot of work clearly went into this album, the songs are kind of hit-and-miss - too often the Dan boys just lay down some processed session-man groove and ride with it for five or six minutes. Sometimes it works, like on the funky "Jack Of Speed" or the drum-heavy cool-cat "Janie Runaway," but sometimes it doesn't, like the way overlong and manic title track or the four-minute muted sax solo that ends "West Of Hollywood" (otherwise a pretty decent closer). The opener "Gaslighting Abbie" rests somewhere in the middle, saved by a really neat vocal melody but marred by annoyingly "cool" backing music that sounds like it's meant for "Seinfeld: The Album." When the Dansters concentrate on melody, the results are joyous, like the concise ballad "Almost Gothic," with a note-perfect melody, and "Cousin Dupree," a really blatant song about incest which in typical Dan tradition was released as the first single and in typical radio tradition was played anyway by clueless DJ's. I think I heard it in a movie theater a couple of times.
The album is definitely flawed in several ways (notice that I haven't mentioned very many of the lyrics... it's because in the Gaucho tradition, they're not easy to notice), but it's a very listenable album and if you're planning on buying the band's '70s albums you'd might as well buy this one too because even with the increased production values and faux-jazzy stylistic shift, it's still a Dan album and completely in tune with the band's usual spirit. By surprise, it won the 2000 Album Of The Year Grammy, which is a bit stupid not because it beat out contenders like Eminem (who cares, The Marshall Mathers LP is an annoying piece of crap anyway) but because it's yet another indicator that the Grammy is more of a sales-based lifetime achievement award than an actual testament to an artist's talent. "Wow, an award statue!....Oh wait, it's a Grammy...."
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[email protected] (Nick Kiefer)
My first impression of this album was that it was kind of weak. It almost seemed like Steely Dan was "trying" to recreate the old Dan magic by sort of copying old "formulas" that worked. However (as is usually the case), after multiple plays, the depth of Two Against Nature began to emerge. Rich Bunnell is again giving away his nit-picky and snooty posture (by his own admission, see Countdown To Ecstacy review) as he picks apart this pretty cool album. Yes, Two Against Nature definitely has it's flaws, but they are not the uppity, more-musical-than-thou pointers tossed about by Bunnell.
One of the first negative impressions I had, which still holds, is that the lead guitar parts (for the most part, Jack of Speed is the lone exception and just because Walter Becker's style fits the song) should have been played by a guitarist (or guitarists) with a little more virtuosity. Some of the songs lend themselves to great electric guitar lickin', and no offense, but it seems like Becker's massive ego may have been the stumbling block that kept this album from being great instead of just good. The lead guitar parts are fairly weak in comparison with what they could have been (say, if they'd gotten a guitar player with comparable skills to the sax players on the album; some of the sax work is incredible).
West of Hollywood with its rolling base, minor chords, and cobblestone guitar and sax leads is a stimulatingly moody song. Jack of Speed is killer, and if you ever get to hear the PBS live version, you'll love the guitar work (see, I don't just completely dis Becker). Jamie Runaway is fun, with nice sax work. What A Shame About Me is hot and has intriguing lyrics in the Dan tradition, but better lead guitar could have made it very hot. Gaslighting Abbie, while lyrically interesting, is one of the weaker numbers. Same with the title track. Don't forget, however, that any weakness here is relative to Steely Dan itself, who set the standard for fusion arrangement, composition, and instrumental virtuosity (not to mention lyrics and singing).
Bunnell tries so hard to humanize Dan and classify them like an office clerk would. Yet by his own admission, his ears are exposed mostly to "mainstream music" (Countdown To Ecstacy review again). Why can't some groups transcend classification? Fagen and Becker proved that they fall into the unclassifiable category wth their creativity and intelligence long ago. People who, perhaps out of jealousy, simply HAVE to categorize everything will end up sounding like Bunnell. Face value, Two Against Nature is an 8.5. Versus Steely Dan, I give it a 7 also.
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