In his original brief review of this album, Robert Christgau referred to it as "A hit single with a good album attached," which he meant as a compliment (he gave the album an A grade), but while I get the core sentiment, the review (as often happens with Christgau and his attempts to write as few words as possible) doesn't give much of a clear sense of the actual contents. For one thing, while the opening "Do it Again" was indeed a big hit single (and it absolutely deserved it), the album also ended up with another single that was nearly as impactful ("Reelin' in the Years"), and a couple of other songs here probably could have been successful singles had the band felt inclined to release them as such. This is largely an album where the line between "single tracks" and "album tracks" gets blurred in a fascinating way, and while not everything works incredibly well, enough does for me to rate this highly.

The two biggest hits from this album, of course, are essentially unimpeachable. "Do It Again" has long been a strong contender for my favorite Steely Dan song (I'm not sure where exactly it lands but it's super high), and while I suppose this exposes me as a bit of a poseur, I'm willing to accept the consequences. The slippery but solid foundation, the incredibly memorable vocal melody and chorus, the intoxicating electic sitar and organ solos, and the biting imagery of people whose lives maybe haven't gone the way they would have liked, all combine to make this possibly the most instantly impactful song of their career. "Reelin' in the Years" is nearly as good, though, featuring a fascinating combination of ambigously vitriolic verses with a big upbeat chorus, and the guitar solo (courtesy of session musician Elliott Randall) is rightfully an icon of efficient and minimalist guitar playing.

A few other tracks on this album weren't singles, but while I don't listen to the radio and thus wouldn't know for sure, I would have to assume that, at the least, these would get some consideration if a DJ was looking for a Steely Dan "deep cut" (in the broadest sense of the term, since at least when I stopped paying attention to classic rock radio the term "deep cut" didn't really involve diving that deep). "Dirty Work" features Palmer doing the blue-eyed soul thing that he was largely brought in for, and while neither Fagen nor Becker really liked it, I think it provides a great soothing respite in the wake of "Do it Again," despite the somewhat unfortunate lyrics (about a man having an affair with a married woman). "Midnite Cruiser" is another favorite of mine, if only because of how hilarious I find the transition between the *low-key minor* low-key minor* *low-key minor* of the verses to the *HEY DO YOU LIKE MAJOR WELL I'VE GOT SOME MAJOR* of the chorus. The guitar parts in that one (both the quiet ones in the verses and the louder but still subtle ones in the breaks) are delightful, too.

The last two tracks are also ones I would consider at least minor classics for the band. "Change of the Guard" has lyrics that sound like they should have been written 5 or so years earlier, and the song does have some trappings of an early 70s update of a handful of 60s British Invasion songs put in a blender, but so help me I enjoy this song a ton every time it comes on, from the opening keyboard notes onward. The closing "Turn That Heartbeat Over Again" is the salty/sweet dichotomy of Steely Dan put in the starkest possible relief, with the infamous lyrics "Love your mother, love your brother, love 'em til they run for cover" co-existing in the same song as the pure bubblegum of the chorus, and I just can't get enough of the juxtaposition of the two.

As for the other four songs, I'm not terribly fond of the mid-tempo stomping "Kings" (which never really lives up to the aching epic power of the opening piano and guitar lines) or of "Fire in the Hole" (despite the jazzy piano lines), but the other two work just fine. "Only a Fool Would Say That" is a relatively throwaway Latin-based shuffle, but the song seems to know that it's a relatively throwaway Latin-based shuffle, and it works well in the context of the album (and if nothing else I really like the guitar solo following the "only a FOOOOOOL" in the middle). And finally, "Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me)" (the other major Palmer showcase of the album) is downright beautiful, with some great guitar harmonics at the beginning and terrific pedal steel work throughout that makes it largely unlike anything else in their catalogue.

The band would top this album multiple times through its career, of course, and the album somewhat fits into the band's career in the same way that, say, Seasons 1 and 2 of Parks & Recreation (before Adam Scott and Rob Lowe) fit into that show, but it's still a very strong beginning for the band. Long ago, there was actually a period of time where I had thought I would eventually give this album the mark of the band's best, and while I clearly changed my mind on this, I feel like somebody could do worse in trying to get into the band than to get this one first (generally speaking, among the albums the band did that matter, one could do a lot worse than hear them chronologically).

The most obvious change between this one and its predecessor, of course, is the absence of Palmer, who left after everyone agreed he didn't really fit with the band, and as a result Fagen took on full-time lead vocals. As on the debut album, Fagen is less impressive technically than Palmer, but he also fits the general mold of the band in a way Palmer never could, and the decision ends up being a positive one. In terms of style, the band works more-or-less in the same approach taken on the debut (this is still a rock band playing rock music), but while the band still nominally aims for the same slick FM-radio sound, there's an intensity and viciousness here that was only sometimes hinted at on the debut. In addition, the instrumental passages start to get longer and more intricate, as the band begins to veer towards the ambiguously kinda-sorta-maybe-prog style that would characterize them for the next few years, and this decision is a positive one. In terms of combining the hard and the angry and the poppy and the complex, the band wouldn't quite hit the ideal balance mixture of these aspects again to the same degree they do here.

Where the previous album had ten songs, five on each side, the lengthening of the instrumental breaks and the general increase in complexity result in this one lasting about the same length (~41 minutes) with eight songs, four on each side. The opening "Bodhisattva," which in another band might have been an earnest declaration of an embrace of Buddhist ideals but more likely is mocking the hell out of West Coast liberal whites who embrace Buddhism to be trendy, is an absolute rush, and its 5 minutes fly by in a hurry. The jazzy boogie base, the energetic dueling guitar and keyboard solos, the angry ambiguously ethnic guitar flourish at the end, and just the sheer intensity of the song's venom make this one of their better songs for sure. The following gentle "Razor Boy" takes on the "Dirty Work" role from the previous album, but in a jazzier and less soulful way this time around, and while this doesn't have any sung moments as striking as the chorus of that one, the vibraphone parts are guaranteed to bring me a smile to my face every time I hear it, and the way the steely guitars are incorporated makes the song seem more exotic than it would be without them. "The Boston Rag" is big (especially in the slow ascending guitar lines) and artsy and majestic and angry, with a mixture of jazzy-blues and jazzy-prog that few other bands could pull off convincingly (and even fewer would try), while "Your Gold Teeth" (which ends the first side) brings back the band's fascination with incorporating Latin rhythms into its jamming, featuring an amazing electric piano part but also some intoxicating guitar work that spars with it to great effect.

"Show Biz Kids," which starts the second side, was selected as the lead single for this album, and this was probably a bad choice regardless of how much the song rules in its own right. There sure aren't any concessions to the public's taste like one would find in the choruses of "Do it Again" or "Reelin' in the Years" in this song; this is just a non-stop jazzy-bluesy groove underpinning five minutes of pure anger and venom (not just from the lyrics and barely-sung vocals either; the slide guitar work in this track is just filthy). Mind you, this is an awesome non-stop jazzy-bluesy groove underpinning five minutes of pure anger and venom, but I could totally get it if somebody listened to this track and decided they were out on Steely Dan and their negativity for good (I wouldn't agree with this by a long shot but I would get it).

"My Old School" is another exercise in pure venom, this time driven by a fun upbeat horn-driven soul boogie groove, with Fagen ultimately concluding that he doesn't want to go back again to visit his college until "California tumbles into the sea," and you'd better believe I sing along loudly to "I said oh no / William and Mary won't do / Well, I did not think the girl could be so cruel / And I'm never going back to my old school." "Pearl of the Quarter," the side's attempt at something vaguely resembling a gentle ballad, probably would have sounded better with Palmer than with Fagen, but Fagen isn't bad here per se (and the clumsiness of his delivery makes it endearing in its own way), and the pedal steel parts are just oh so lovely. And finally, after the brief detour into sentimentality (sort of), we make a full-force return to big and rocking and sort of artsy (thanks to those quiet fast guitar flourishes and the simple-but-effective keyboard parts in the middle) with the closing "King of the World," and even if I don't know exactly what Fagen means with "No marigolds in the promised land / There's a hole in the ground where they used to grow / Any man left on the Rio Grande is the king of the world as far as I know," it's just such an effective and memorable phrase that I feel compelled to mouth along to it no matter where I am.

(UPDATE: I have been informed that "King of the World" is about living in a world ravaged by nuclear annihilation, and I'm mad that I somehow didn't figure this out myself)

Maybe Aja is more technically perfect, and maybe even Pretzel Logic is a more interesting product in a certain sense due to its purposeful minimalism, but ultimately I feel like this iteration of the group, still functioning as a proper band while expanding its ambition and scope, at least showed the greatest potential of any iteration of the band, and I feel like they at least came close to hitting it. The best way to get acquainted with Steely Dan is simply to buy the Citizen Steely Dan boxset, of course, but if you're going to pick off albums a la carte, this absolutely has to be among your initial purchases no matter what.

Inevitably, with these major changes to the very definition of what constituted Steely Dan, major changes would also appear on the first album to reflect this new definition, and while I somewhat regret the effective dissolution of what had been such a hot and tight band, the replacement is so intriguing that I ultimately essentially consider the shift a lateral move, not a step back. As much as I love what resulted from the band's willingness on Countdown to Ecstasy to take an approach that led to it functioning so well as an album but limited its appeal as a pop album, the band (or at least Fagen/Becker) clearly did not, because this album shows the band tightly embracing the format of short pop songs. The way they choose to do so, though, intrigues me to no end; these are pop songs, sure, but they're very intricately arranged and composed pop songs, and even more than that, they constitute a fascinating exercise in minimalism on the whole. A couple of songs make it to around 4:30, and some are between 3 and 4 minutes, but more than half of the songs last fewer than 3 minutes, even as it's clear that, had they wanted them to, most of these songs could have easily supported expansion. The album has 11 songs that last a mere 34 minutes, as opposed to the ~40 minutes of the previous albums, and this is an album where you really feel the short run time and the compression of ideas required to make this happen.

I wouldn't quite go so far as to declare either the first or second half flawless, but they're each probably about 90% of the way to flawless. The opening "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" shows that the band put a tremendous amount of emphasis on getting a hit single out of these sessions, and I could easily see where somebody could dislike the soft-rock slickness of the song, but I think it's pretty great. The lyrics have enough of a creepy obsessive stalker vibe to give the song the level of bite one would hope for from a Steely Dan song at this point, and all of the arrangement details, from the guitar solo (courtesy of Baxter) to the rich piano (courtesy of Michael Omartian) to whatever, flesh out the slick pop core of the song in a way that makes the song feel finished without feeling overwrought. Lest somebody think that this will somehow serve as a template for the whole album, though, "Night by Night" shows that the band could now do horn-driven funk rock with the best, and if somebody can't get sucked in by the build into the chorus or the amazing guitar solo or the power of the horn section, then they should probably just not bother with this band going forward. "Any Major Dude Will Tell You" (which holds the distinction of being the second best song in the world of rock to mention a Squonk) mixes acoustic and electric guitars with electric piano in an irresistable way, and the result is 3 minutes of pop bliss, especially when that delicate little electric guitar run pops up in the breaks. "Barrytown" features the band going for a stylistic mixture of multiple influences at once (there are Beatles and Dylan influences in here for sure, and more generally just the vibe of mid-60s pre-psychedelic pop rock), and they somehow manage to find a way to mix these influences that sounds both totally familiar and totally unlike any other mixture of these influences I can think of. The piano in the verses is as rich as can be, the bridge ("In the beginning ...") is absolutely gorgeous and totally unexpected given what comes before it, and the pedal steel solo at the end, as much as I would like it to go longer, is basically perfect. And finally, the side ends with an update of the Duke Ellington instrumental "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo," and the band finds a way to make this track go beyond perfunctory filler and become a highlight of the album; the muted trumpet of the original is replaced by Becker singing through a talk box, and the trombone part is replaced with pedal steel. If you're somehow skeptical, I promise you, the result is terrific.

The second half, then, has a fascinating edge and intensity to it as a whole, and this is largely due to the odd juxtaposition of runtimes; the title track, in the middle of the side, lasts a little over 4:30, while the other five tracks range from 1:30 to 2:41. The title track is a slow, jazzy, minor-key blues with an amazing mixture of electric piano and horns and guitars/bass/drums, with lyrics that apparently relate to time travel but that generally fit (in vibe at least) with the band's typical sneering contempt for everyone and everything that isn't them. Becker's leads (this is the first album where he started to play both lead and bass guitar) find a mix between roughness and proficiency that works perfectly for the song, and the pedal steel parts in the middle are as rousing as any pedal steel parts from the band to this point. The other five songs, then, are all over the place in style and feel, even if I end up liking them all about the same. "Parker's Band" is up-tempo music-hall-like 70s pop rock at its best, filled with lyrical references to Charlie Parker and various aspects of his recording career, and it gets the side off to a great start. "Through With Buzz" almost sounds like Gentle Giant in some aspects of the instrumentation, filled with string and piano and marimba parts that don't resolve quite as one would expect, but the vocal melody is memorable in a pretty conventional way, and the track almost seems like a world unto itself despite only lasting 1:30. "With a Gun" is an exercise in blending the band's core style with up-tempo folk/country aspects, and the cross between the peppy and angry aspects of the track makes it irresistable. "Charlie Freak" has a marvelous dark piano line and a vocal line to match, and the slow winding guitar lines in the background help give the song a feeling of tremendous depth. And finally, the closing "Monkey in Your Soul" is just a fun 60s Stones-y mid-tempo rocker (think something like "It's Not Easy" from Aftermath) with tight horns to give the song a party atmosphere (at odds with the lyrics, of course) that helps make the album feel like it was a lot more fun than they might have intended (and once again, I dig the way that they purposefully cut off the song sooner than they might have, giving me a nagging feeling of wanting more).

Even if I somewhat prefer the more traditional approach offered by Countdown to Ecstasy, I find this album a marvelous experience from nearly start to finish, and picking between them is a terribly difficult exercise. If somebody told me that they considered this their best due to the consistency in the song-quality or for other reasons, I wouldn't blink an eye, and this is every bit as essential as that one or Aja.

The opening "Black Friday" sounds largely unlike the rest of the album, and as much as I like the rest of the album, that's probably why I like it most. The lyrics are loosely based on the first major event to be termed Black Friday, a scandal from the Grant presidency in which a couple of investors (with personal connections to Grant, though Grant didn't realize what was going on) cornered the gold market and in so doing helped trigger a financial panic, but they take some liberties with the facts in order to make the song punchier and more evocative (like when they reference the main figure of the song running away to Muswellbrook, Australia). In terms of music, the song is an intense rocker with some great electric piano and well-placed echo on Fagen's voice, but it's the guitar solo (from Becker) that absolutely steals the show, and it's great enough to make me a little sad that the band wouldn't do anything like this again.

Among the other nine tracks, I tend to like those on the first half a little more than the ones on the second half, but the gap between the two isn't enormous. Within the first half, "Doctor Wu" is the standout, with lyrics that are typically opaque but that seem to mean a lot to Fagen (I've seen a number of theories for the song but a particularly intriguing one suggests that it's about a heart doctor who saved his mother, though I can't say for sure whether that's right), and the build from the quiet jazzy piano-heavy verses to the bittersweet anthemic chorus gets me every time (there's also an especially masterful sax solo). "Bad Sneakers" (the first Steely Dan song to include contributions from Michael McDonald, who provides backing vocals here) is another nice bit of gentle anthemic jazz-pop, with a guitar part made to sound like a sitar and another strong Becker solo. "Rose Darling" is a heartwarming (by Steely Dan standards) ballad about either an affair or masturbation (I'm going to guess the latter), with a chorus that sounds both uplifting and ominous, and the Dean Parks guitar solo is another winner. "Daddy Don't Live in That New York City No More" is a rhythmic bluesy stomper in the vein of something from Countdown to Ecstasy, but filtered through the kidneys of this album's general style (meaning it's softer and jazzier), and its general swagger meshes well with the lyrics, which seem to be about some former NYC bigshot (maybe a pimp or a gangster) who either died or who left town for good (whether it was of their own free will is left undetermined). It's another great guitar song as well, both in the riff and in the scuzzy (meant in a good way) solo from Larry Carlton.

The second half doesn't measure up to the first side on the whole, but it does have what's probably my second or third favorite song on the album in "Any World (I'm Welcome To)." The verses may essentially just be a long tense build into the chorus, but they're an engaging long tense build (especially in the piano), and the chorus (which may be my single favorite part of the album) makes it absolutely worth it. I'm also quite fond of the closing "Throw Back the Little Ones," which might be about scoring drugs or might be about getting burned out by show business or might be about something else, but that more importantly has a wonderful memorable chorus and has a totally unexpected Zappa tribute in the middle (there's a brief stretch starting at about 1:55 that sounds like it could have come from Hot Rats). As for the other three, the most infamous is "Everyone's Gone to the Movies," a calypso pastiche about watching porn with a minor, and it's ok, but if anything I think the lyrics are too transparent for the song to work as effectively as it could, and the music is not among Steely Dan's best work. "Your Gold Teeth 2" is a sequel that has nothing in common with its predecessor, instead meshing gentle jazz-pop with a weirdly out-of-place jazz-fusion-style synth introduction, and it's fine, but it's also a point where my mind starts to wander when listening to this album straight through. And finally, "Chain Lightning" is a gentle bluesy shuffle, with a typically fascinating juxtaposition between the music and the lyrics (likely about a Nazi rally but who really can say), but where the music ultimately feels a little flimsy compared to what the band had done in previous albums.

So ok, I don't like it as much as what came before it (or one of the albums that would come after it), but Katy Lied is still a fine album with a great deal to recommend to it, and I could even understand if somebody wanted to name it as their favorite from the band (since, as I mentioned before, this one probably matches the quintessential sense of what Steely Dan sounds like on the whole). If nothing else, songs like "Black Friday" or "Doctor Wu" or "Any World (I'm Welcome To)" should be heard post-haste from anybody first getting into the band.

At least the first three songs, if not quite at the classic level for the band, are more in line with the quality I would have expected in the follow-up album to Katy Lied. "Kid Charlemagne" manages to combine the jazz, funk, and prog elements that would dominate the rest of the album with the pop sensibility that had been one of the band's essential strengths, and the result is magical. The mix of keyboards (organ, electric piano, and clavinet) is nearly ideal, the lyrics are dangerous and actually discernable (telling the story of a drug dealer), and both the vocal melody and the vocal delivery (both lead and backing) are just wonderful. The guitar solo (from Larry Carlton, who would also contribute a few other less memorable solos on the album) is a marvel in its own right, with notes jumping around in a way that would probably sound like total nonsense out of context but somehow sounds perfect in context. "The Caves of Altamira" manages to be both menacing and lovely all at once, with a terrific horn arrangement, probably the most memorable vocal part on the album, and probably the most thought-provoking lyrics on the album (about early cave paintings and how what would have driven somebody to create those is the same fundamental urge that drives people to make movies today). And finally, "Don't Take Me Alive," as simple as its lyrical conceit may be, is very effective in how it delivers its message all the same, with a more straightforward (albeit somewhat generic by the band's standard) rock arrangement than anything else on the album, and it's memorable enough and striking enough to stand out as a highlight.

I'm glad that most 70s Steely Dan albums don't sound like this one, but even so, with this standing out as their low-point of the decade (just edging out the also-pretty-good Gaucho), it still has its fair share of good aspects that make it clear that it came from a good band that just happened to experience a brief period of bad judgement. If you're a serious fan of the band you might well like this more than I do, but definitely don't do anything silly like listen to this one first (and if you somehow listen to this one first and dislike it, please don't give up on the band).

This album has, in many ways, gone down as the center of the Steely Dan legend, and this is largely justified. The album won a Grammy for Best Engineered Non-Classical Recording, and it has gone down in history as one of the most essential albums for audiophiles. The list of supporting musicians who appeared on this album is stunning if you have knowledge of prominent 70s L.A. studio musicians, in both rock and jazz, and Fagen and Becker (and producer Gary Katz) extracted excellent performances from them across the board. What ultimately makes this album work so well, as something beyond a niche recording only of interest to jazz snobs and fidelity snobs, is the band's firm recommitment to making its music striking and memorable. Where much of The Royal Scam fell in the category of music that, in some form or another, had to be defended with an argument of "well, if you don't like it, then clearly you're just a dumb plebe," this album goes out of its way to make itself attractive to the listener, even as it's also firmly committed to making itself attractive in terms set by the band. This is a jazz album, and in many ways it's also a blues album, but it is also a big shiny pop album, both in the vocal parts and in the instrumental parts, and it manages to strike this balance while also displaying restraint and good taste in the process. With this album, the band found the vanishingly small sweet spot where all of these desired aspects converge, a sweet spot that they themselves wouldn't reach again.

The first side of this album is basically perfect. The opening "Black Cow" is a gentle jazzy pop anthem about a man's feelings about his cheating wife, with the band returning to a combination of keyboards that worked well in previous albums (piano, electric piano, clavinet), and with a horn arrangement (featuring a great saxophone solo but with great horns in the background as well) that could have been total cheese in a different context but sounds perfect and tasteful here. The side-closing "Deacon Blues," about someone who dreams of becoming a musician but never achieves his goal, has one of the band's best choruses (a mockery of the fact that the only thing society really cares about is professional sports, while ignoring people like the song's protagonist who want to make an impact with something else), and it does an excellent job of creating an atmosphere that fundamentally matches the daydream of the lyrics. My favorite aspect of the song (aside from the big obvious chorus) is the subtle guitar work tucked deep into the mix, but the song is so uniformly excellent that this favorite part could change at any time. The big highlight of the side, though, and the best of the album, is the title track, which marks the peak of the band's ambitions and finds them reaching all of them successfully. The song, which seems to be (based on my limited internet research) about a Korean woman that Fagen had once had a crush on (though it might be about other things as well), starts as a mystical jazzy piano-ballad (with bits of guitar for decoration) and becomes an Eastern-tinged prog-jazz-pop tour-de-force, with a guitar solo that's essentially impossible for one person to play, with drum solos that are so subtle that I basically forget that they're drum solos, with an absolute winner of a saxophone solo, and all of this in about 8 minutes. I am ashamed to admit that, the first couple of times I listened to this song after buying Citizen Steely Dan many years ago, I found it boring and too mellow and smooth, but that was a terrible mistake, and I hope you don't repeat it if you have never heard this before.

The second side isn't nearly as stellar, but I still like it on the whole. "Peg" isn't exactly a low point per se, but it does strike me somewhat as Diet Steely Dan, a horn-heavy 70s dance-pop song with an infectious chorus that skews the album's balance a little bit much towards trying for a big hit single (they would have denied this, of course, but I wouldn't entirely believe them). I wish they could have swapped in "FM," a jazz-fusion pop-single recorded in these sessions and released a year later as a single (and the title track of a movie with the same name), but no dice. Much better is "Home at Last," a slow-and-steady number with a majestic horn section (especially about 3 minutes in) and lyrics loosely connected to "The Odyssey," and with one of best choruses on the album (culminating in the phrase "Could it be that I have found my home at last?"). "I Got the News" sounds a little more like something from The Royal Scam than from Aja, leaning away from any sort of clear vocal hook in favor of emphasizing tight jazzy-funky precision, but the tight jazzy-funky precision is irresistible, and the part in the middle where the backing vocals briefly take over is terrific. And finally, "Josie" finishes things off with a song that sounds like it would have belonged as cleanly on Countdown to Ecstasy as here (though maybe with a rougher arrangement there), with a tight groove underpinning a song about girl whose return home is a cause for celebration (whether it's because she's back from college or back from prison or back from a convent is unclear, though it's also implied that maybe the cause for excitement will maybe involve those waiting for her getting a little something-something out of it). The delicate bluesy guitar solo in the middle is my favorite, but all of Becker's guitar parts on here are a delight.

In an ideal world, this album would have marked the beginning of a new extended surge for the band, but instead the aftermath helped lead to the band's dissolution (after one more album). They initially planned to tour this album, but financial squabbles between their backing musicians helped make this impossible, and things just got worse from there. As is, while the band's inability to build on this album in any sort of sustainable way is certainly a disappointment, the album is great enough to make the aftermath worth it. If you're not already a fan of the band's earlier albums or of jazz fusion, you should exercise some caution in approaching this album, and even then you should be prepared for this album not to wow you the first couple of times you hear it. When this album breaks through, though, it does so in a big way.

I really like the three songs here that are easiest to enjoy, and while I don't dislike the others, I feel a coldness towards them that isn't typical of how I feel about Steely Dan. "Glamour Profession," the title track, "My Rival," and "Third World Man" are impeccably played (though I'm not even going to try to go through that giant supporting musicians list and sort through who's playing what where) and moody and built around good grooves (with nice solos laid on top), and I enjoy all of them on but can barely say a thing about them when they're done (aside from the observation that somewhat awkward female backing vocals singing about ponchos seems more like a Frank Zappa thing than a Steely Dan thing). I guess "Third World Man" is mournful in a way that's fittingly poignant (especially in the mid-song guitar solo) for the band's last final track for such a long time, but I have no real observations of it beyond that.

At least we have the other three tracks, which are Steely Dan classics by any standard, even if they don't quite fit the expectation of the band up to this point. "Babylon Sisters" is about (I think) a man who is finding that his sexually indulgent lifestyle is leaving him less and less fulfilled, and the mellow keyboards and steady reggae-influenced drumbeat work well in contrast to the backing vocals singing "Babylon sisters SHAKE IT" and the like. "Hey Nineteen" is about an older man who's discovering the horrors of generation gaps as he ages and continues to pursue 19-year-old women (hence his horror at discovering she doesn't know who 'Retha Franklin is), and the music is minimalist in a way I find quite attractive (in keyboards and guitars but also with the falsetto vocals that kinda sorta pass for a chorus I guess). And finally, "Time Out of Mind" is transparently about drug use (chasing the dragon sometimes refers to a Chinese approach to using multiple drugs at once, and sometimes refers to trying to achieve the high you got the first time you used drugs), and it's upbeat in a way that's unnerving but also weirdly makes perfect sense. Mark Knopfler plays a bit of the various guitar parts on this track, but good luck finding him if you don't know where he is.

Ultimately, then, this album falls for me somewhere in the middle of mediocre and good, and since I'm in a good mood I'll err on the higher side of things for now. It's probably the worst introduction to the band's pre-breakup albums, and I can see why Fagen and Becker ended up calling it quits after this; as decent as it is, this feels like the work of a band that has completely burnt out, a neutron star born from a supernova followed by complete collapse. I guess there might be people out there for whom Gaucho is their favorite Steely Dan album, and I get that taste is taste and all that, but this position would completely baffle me, especially when Aja is right there in front of it.

This album is almost uniformly pretty good. "Cousin Dupree" got special notice for its lyrics related to incest, but lyrics aside I don't see why it should receive particular attention. The closing "West of Hollywood" is probably my favorite, if only because "I'm way deep into nothing special" is an especially great line, and because the main groove is a little more energetic than usual and the endless saxophone soloing is fun in the moment, but at the same time 8 minutes might have been a bit much for it (this sure doesn't have the same amount of stuff in it as did "Aja"). Otherwise, this is an album full of perfectly polished instrumental parts that sound great in the moment but never stick, overlaid with lyrics that sound important and vocal melodies that seem memorable in the moment but never stick. And that sentence isn't really meant as an insult! I enjoy these tracks every time I listen to them, whether in the context of a full album or whenever they pop up on shuffle, and even if they're examples of "Steely Dan By Numbers," they largely show that the late-period Steely Dan approach could work in a by-numbers setting as well as any other band could work in a by-numbers setting. Even if I have little to say about "Gaslighting Abbie" or "What a Shame About Me" or "Janie Runaway" or "Jack of Speed," even after listening to these tracks off-and-on for years, my reaction the next time I hear them will inevitably be a positive one, and that says something.

So no, this isn't as good as Kid A (or, should you feel so inclined, the other finalists that this album beat out for that Grammy), but it's a pretty good album, and I see no good reason for somebody who likes Gaucho to feel bad feelings towards this one. It's 1000 miles away from something like Countdown to Ecstasy or Pretzel Logic in overall impact, of course, but if this is what Steely Dan was meant to sound like in old age, then so be it.