Steely Dan - 2 albums: Gaucho / Everything Must Go

Album: Gaucho
Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 37:48
Size: 86.6 MB
Styles: Album rock, Jazz-rock
Year: 1980/2000
Art: Front

[5:50] 1. Babylon Sisters
[5:05] 2. Hey Nineteen
[7:27] 3. Glamour Profession
[5:30] 4. Gaucho
[4:10] 5. Time Out Of Mind
[4:32] 6. My Rival
[5:12] 7. Third World Man

Aja was cool, relaxed, and controlled; it sounded deceptively easy. Its follow-up, Gaucho, while sonically similar, is its polar opposite: a precise and studied record, where all of the seams show. Gaucho essentially replicates the smooth jazz-pop of Aja, but with none of that record's dark, seductive romance or elegant aura. Instead, it's meticulous and exacting; each performance has been rehearsed so many times that it no longer has any emotional resonance. Furthermore, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen's songs are generally labored, only occasionally reaching their past heights, like on the suave "Babylon Sisters," "Time Out of Mind," and "Hey Nineteen." Still, those three songs are barely enough to make the remainder of the album's glossy, meandering fusion worthwhile. ~Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Gaucho

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Album: Everything Must Go
Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 42:05
Size: 96.3 MB
Styles: Jazz-rock, Contemporary pop-rock
Year: 2003
Art: Front

[3:33] 1. The Last Mall
[3:57] 2. Things I Miss The Most
[4:25] 3. Blues Beach
[4:55] 4. Godwhacker
[4:12] 5. Slang Of Ages
[5:53] 6. Green Book
[3:58] 7. Pixeleen
[4:24] 8. Lunch With Gina
[6:43] 9. Everything Must Go

When Steely Dan released Two Against Nature in 2000, their first album in 20 years, it was an unexpected gift, since all odds seemed against Donald Fagen and Walter Becker reteaming for nothing more than the occasional project, let alone a full album. As it turned out, the duo was able to pick up where they left off, with Two Against Nature seamlessly fitting next to Gaucho and earning the band surprise success, including a Grammy for Album of the Year, but the bigger surprise is that the reunion wasn't a one-off -- they released another record, Everything Must Go, a mere three years later. Given the (relatively) short turnaround time between the two records, it comes as little surprise that Everything Must Go is a companion piece to Two Against Nature, and sounds very much like that album's laid-back, catchy jazz-funk, only with an elastic, loose feel -- loose enough to have Walter Becker take the first lead vocal in Steely Dan history, in fact, which sums up the Dan's attitude in a nutshell. This time, they're comfortable and confident enough to let anything happen, and while that doesn't really affect the sound of the record, it does affect the feel. Though it as expertly produced as always, there's less emphasis on production and a focus on the feel, often breathing as much as a live performance, another new wrinkle for Steely Dan. Sometimes, it also sounds as if Becker and Fagen have written the songs quickly; there's nothing that betrays their high standards of craft, but, on a whole, the songs are neither as hooky nor as resonant as the ones unveiled on its predecessor. While it might have been nice to have a song as immediate as, say, "Cousin Dupree," there are no bad songs here and many cuts grow as nicely as those on Two Against Nature. But the real selling point of Everything Must Go is that relaxed, comfortable, live feel. It signals that Steely Dan has indeed entered a new phase, one less fussy and a bit funkier (albeit lite funk). If they can keep turning out a record this solid every three years, we'd all be better off. ~Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Everything Must Go

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