Steely Dan

Steely Dan's Gaucho hasn't aged a day since it was released in 1980, setting the stage for modern Smooth Jazz. Even darker than Aja, it isn't as cohesive an album but still scores song-for-song. "Time Out Of Mind" and "Hey Nineteen" became radio staples while "Babylon Sisters" and "Glamour Profession" may be their ultimate "L.A. is hell" narratives.

The thing you begin to notice, listening to Steely Dan's songs, is that no one ever answers
anyone. For all the talk---and their latest album, Gaucho, is as compulsively chatty as
dinnertime on death row --- there's no conversation. Whoever keeps asking, "Who is that
guacho, amigo?" might as well be talking to the wall. Even the melody of "Gaucho" just
throws the singer's questions back at him, jumping up the scale as his intonation... More >

With Walter Becker down to composer credits and very occasional bass, Donald Fagen progresses toward the intellectual cocktail rock he's sought for almost a decade--followed, of course, by a cadre of top-drawer El Lay studio hacks, the only musicians in the world smart enough to play his sh*t. Even the song with Aretha in it lends credence to rumors that the LP was originally entitled Countdown to Lethargy. After half a dozen hearings, the most arcane harmonies and unlikely hooks sound comforting, like one of those electromassagers that relax the muscles with a low-voltage shock. Craftsmen this obsessive don't want to rule the world--they just want to make sure it doesn't get them. (Grade - B-)