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.
http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/on_second_thought/steely-dan-gaucho.htmThis article is pretty good, but the best part is at the end, when the author sums up as-close-to-exactly-as-anyone's-got-so-far how I feel about the album and why it's such a unique listen: "disturbingly perfect and relentlessly pathetic."
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Who'd have thought that one day I'd become a serious fan of a group that once looked like this:Not that looks matter, or anything.I honestly believe that at times, Steely Dan represent ultimate perfection in music as I have known it since I was born. Sounds like an exaggeration, but I feel that way about a lot of what I listen to, so the claim might have "less unique value" than you'd think. St...
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http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/on_second_thought/steely-dan-gaucho.htmThis article is pretty good, but the best part is at the end, when the author sums up as-close-to-exactly-as-anyone's-got-so-far how I feel about the album and why it's such a unique listen: "disturbingly perfect and relentlessly pathetic."
More >
Who'd have thought that one day I'd become a serious fan of a group that once looked like this:Not that looks matter, or anything.I honestly believe that at times, Steely Dan represent ultimate perfection in music as I have known it since I was born. Sounds like an exaggeration, but I feel that way about a lot of what I listen to, so the claim might have "less unique value" than you'd think. St...
More >
| Title | Lyrics | Buy |
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| 1 Babylon Sisters |
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| 2 Hey Nineteen |
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| 3 Glamour Profession |
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| 4 Gaucho |
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| 5 Time out of Mind |
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| 6 My Rival |
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| 7 Third World Man |
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 "Gaucho")
