Steely Dan - Two Against Nature
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Free Music Notes for Two Against Nature
Free Music Review: An excellent album
Hit: 5 Stars
Wow. Fagen and Becker, these guys can make seriously good music. Despite Fagen's continued insistence on the use of a Fender Rhodes Electric Piano in every song, lending the tracks a somewhat retro feel, this is brilliant jazz/rock invention. Never have the two sounded more dynamic and alive.
GASLIGHTING ABBIE: I don't really know what this song's about. It's got some very vague lyrics and sounds like a middle-aged hipster's sexy weekend 'away'. Nevertheless, it's funky, full of horns and has a decidedly catchy chorus.
WHAT A SHAME ABOUT ME: This one grows on you. Judging by the last verse, it seems that the protagonist's failure as a career-man is due to his own fear of success.
TWO AGAINST NATURE: Bee-boppin' lyrics and funky horns, with an undercurrent of dissonant clarinets ala Randy Newman's 'Guilty'.
JANIE RUNAWAY: The best track on the album. Funny as hell, about a guy who's picked up a 'wonderwaif' in Gramercy Park, who, with the possibility of a trip to Spain, fulfils the fantasies of the perverse protagonist.
ALMOST GOTHIC: A track about the elusive girl, giving and taking at the same time, obviously stuffing Fagen around.
JACK OF SPEED: Like all Steely Dan songs this one carries any number of interpretations. I like to think of it as a guy who's hooked on speed and as a result his friends have lost track of him. But it could just as well be about anything else. A great song.
COUSIN DUPREE: Fun, fun, fun. Country incest made funky as only the Dan can make it.
NEGATIVE GIRL: Great track, once again about girls and how they tease and tease...
WEST OF HOLLYWOOD: Featuring a four-minute sax-vamp conclusion, this one blows you away with its melancholic undertones and its
great bridge.
All these tracks offer something. Pick it up, get it, buy it, this is the Dan at their best.
Free Music Review: A modern classic
Hit: 5 Stars
To those of you who may be apprehensive about purchasing new SD fayre after a 20-year hiatus(I'll ignore the live album for this purpose)this review is designed to a)reassure you of this overdue offering's glorious quality, and b)to point out to new listeners that despite a fair bit of conflicting debate about this,there ARE a few shifts in style that it may be helpful to point out. These are mainly due to the fact that these guys are 50, not 30, and their attitude has grown far more reflective,and maybe we should say warm and confessional,whilst maintaining all the hallmarks of traditional SD: humour,irony, and crazy situations. The difference between the Dan growing older and your average stadium megastar(s) is that Donald and Walter have achieved it with dignity. In the hands of lesser songwriters the themes represented here(under-achievement,unrequited love,destructive relationships with young girls,murdering your wife,a touch of incest)could have fallen completely flat,except that B & F(who never bought the rock-star thing in the first place)are executing them with a smile now and not a sneer;hence,they've been able to construct a remarkably seamless continuity as Steely Dan that is ultimately satisfying. On a musical note,they have both finally come of age as fine studio players-clearly as a result of the touring years of the 90's-especially Becker,who seems to have merged his own distinctive style with the impeccable techniques of the session guys from the 70's. And the "less-rock,more-jazz" flavour of the whole piece is also age-appropriate and inevitable.Believe me,after a couple of weeks,these songs will fill your soul. It's been hard to find really challenging,enjoyable new CD's recently and in these days when I would rather see a film or read a good book,this album has restored my faith(albeit temporarily)in the waning genre of commercially released music.Free Music Review: TAKES SOME TIME TO WARM UP TO, BUT WORTH THE WAIT
Hit: 5 Stars
This is a good but somewhat uneven album. Its closest relative would be Fagen's Kamakiriad. In fact, "What a Shame About Me" sounds suspiciously like Kamakiriad's "Springtime," and the bass-line in "Janie Runaway" sounds like Kamakiriad's "Trans-island Skyway." For my money, Kamakiriad is the better album by a nose.In classic late-Dan style, Steely Dan lays on horns, female backing singers, and tasty keyboard and guitar licks. The arrangements, style, and sound do tend to sameness on the first listenings, but after more hearings you realize that each song has its own texture and style. The album has some of the chill of Gaucho, the jazzy chord-changes of Katy Lied and Aja, and the sound of Kamakiriad. The lyrics mostly track 70's Dan lowlife, but occasionally the strange nostalgia for 1950's futurama that predominates in Fagen's solo albums peeks through too.
The best songs on the album are "Gaslighting Abbie," "Almost Gothic," "Jack of Speed," "Negative Girl," and "West of Hollywood" (which has catchy and surprising chord-changes and fantastic sax playing by Chris Potter). I usually skip the title track, "What a Shame About Me," and "Cousin Dupree."
For all the talk of the Dan's high musicianship, Becker's guitar solo on "Gaslighting Abbie" sounds like the twanging of a rubber band. Fagen's vocals are recognizable, but his voice sounds weaker and breathier now than in Steely Dan's heyday.
Steely Dan puts most bands to shame. At a time when most groups are just sampling (i.e., stealing from) old hits, Steely Dan continues to practice the art of composition, arrangement, and performance, with intelligent, sophisticated, and catchy songs.
Be patient with the album. It will not grab you on the first listening, but over time you'll come to love it.
Free Music Review: 20 years and they didn't miss a beat...
Hit: 5 Stars
The day after I picked up this CD (before I really became familiar with the tunes), I happened to catch their PBS "In the Spotlight" special which featured many of the new tracks performed along with classic numbers. Amazingly they sat alongside each other very nicely, thank you.
This latest is excellent. The music has almost a minimalist sound to it. "Minimalist" jazz? Well sort of. As on Fagen's Kamakiriad and Becker's 11 Tracks of Whack it takes a few listens before things sort themselves out and the nuances and subtleties of each track reveal themselves. Nothing is as obvious or as immediately "catchy" as their earlier material, but it's well worth the time investment to let this stuff "grow on you". Musically each number is a finely crafted work with tight brass arrangements, some finely understated guitar work from Becker, driving bass and drums, and complex jazz progressions that just carry you along.
Lyrically nothing has changed. I've managed to arrive at some understanding of what maybe... hmmm... half of the numbers are about. At least I think I understand. But this is nothing new for Steely Dan. The wit is still there but it seems more reflective. Steely Dan numbers were always populated by odd characters, but it's easier to sympathise with some of the crazies here (just check out "What a Shame About Me").
Bottom line: Sure to please any Steely Dan fan and those who have followed the post Gaucho solo releases with satisfaction. I also hope it manages to introduce a new generation to the classic recordings of this unique group.
Free Music Review: Flaming the Game...
Hit: 5 Stars
It is difficult to evaluate a series of songs which I have only heard for a few months and then compare them to a cannonized corpus of songs on Steely Dan records which were made, and which were first heard, over twenty years ago.I can only say that certain assertions made my the reviewers on these pages are erronious. No, "Two Against Nature," does not sound like Kamerikand; it does "sound" that way, but the songs, their arrangements, their lyrics, all of them have the unmistakable print of that collaboration between Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. It is unmistakable the duo's baby, and in that way, harkens us back to the Steely Dan of yore.
That the new Steely Dan can affect me in a way not unsimilar to the old is a good sign. I love how in "Two Against Nature" the Jazz moves from the mid-range to the forefront; the horns, the style, it is all big band, even as the agenda of the songs is so different and dissonant. That is the most beautiful thing about the Steely Dan songs; how there is something dark, desperate and perverse in the lyrics while simultaneously, the most beautiful of music is being made; as if no matter how horrible one's reality is, there is a transcendent beauty in the greater things, and this is represented by the music.
What music! Music never heard on a five-minute song before...horns with real Jazz textures! The big band sensibility all around! ..but there to back up a completely different sensibility! The composers' sensibilty which also happens to be this listener's!
I do indeed like "Two Against Nature." I give it my "thumbs up;" I congradulate its makers; I see that like their songs, Steely Dan can reinvent itself with style; and keep in mind, this is 2000, not 1977. Yes, it is Almost Gothic in a natural way...and I like it like that!