Steely Dan - Gaucho CD (Mega Blowout Sale)
SKU
28-MCA112055.2
Throughout their existence, and even today, 'the Dan' stood for solid, hard craft in both songwriting and performance. Could a band that was so clever and classy and smart and witty and cynical ever be this huge in the modern age? Doubtful, says I. Their final of their original lifetime.
"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, Rovi