Steely Dan’s Walter Becker doesn’t rush his solo albums – his last was 14 years ago! Now we know why.
However much he and his cohort Donald Fagan try, the SD template isn’t too far
away. Even the song titles have a SD ring to them.
Anyway, as ‘The Dan’, Fagan takes charge of the singing, and it’s easy to see
why, because Becker is no singer. His paper-thin voice barely breaks loose, whereas
Fagan has plenty of curl. Amazingly, his early efforts – Door Number Two
and limp Downtown Canon are pretty, well, dull.
A massive improvement comes with reggae-infused Bob Is Not….and the cool
bass-line is foot-tappingly infectious, though again his singing lets him down. He really isn’t comfortable taking the lead and it shows at every
level, but as we’d all expect, the jazzy numbers and slick production help him
get by. By the time he’s got to Upside Looking Down he’s got into his
stride and the song is baring all the confidence of a Fagan song, curiously,
but lacking any stardust.
The laidback Paging Audrey ambles along to a steady beat and has some
nifty sax breaks courtesy Chris Hooper, but, you get the feeling this would
have been a Dan reject. He improves again, well, a bit, on the quasi-scientific
concept of the Selfish Gene, but annoyingly neither he (or Fagan come
to that) fail to let their past develop into something really different, which
shows their insecurity as artists, and too (artistically) joined at the hip
of Steely Dan.
Skipping the next two for snooze value reasons, Becker perks up on the delightful
Darkling Down: the chunky groove is really cool, despite the negativity
of the lyrics. Quickly passing by God’s Eye View (something to do with
experimental psychology terminology…yawn…yawn), I reach the American Songbook
quality, well, the start at least, of Three Picture Deal. Its really ‘Dan-tight’
and definitely the albums best track, real quality stuff and by far the most
adventurous (and interesting) but too long overdue.
1. Door Number Two
2. Downtown Canon
3. Bob Is Not Your Uncle Anymore
4. Upside Looking Down
5. Paging Audrey
6. Circus Money
7. Selfish Gene
8. Do You Remember The Name
9. Somebody’s Saturday Night
10. Darkling Down
11. God’s Eye View
12. Three Picture Deal
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
Review & concert pics copyright © Elly Roberts, 2004-2008.
