Hello. I am Don Bushell, a Seattle area development team leader, CIO type, business systems manager, public address announcer, and play by play man. Technical specialties include Roadmapping, Metis, SQL and web design, shopping carts, mass/blast email. Contact me at nwscape@nwscape.com. This page is BUSHELL.COM
If you like the rock / jazz music of Steely Dan, then you went many years, nearly 20, without any new studio releases. Steely Dan returned to the studio in 2000 and 2003 recording Two Against Nature (00) and Everything Must Go (03).
All of the reviews I read before purchasing the these CDs raved about Two Against Nature as being technically brilliant and produced magnificently, perhaps the best album Steely Dan ever created. The talking heads also stated that Everything Must Go was not all that hot. So I bought Two Against Nature and enjoyed it very much. I did not like the first track that much though, Gaslighting Abbie, but all the talking heads said this track was brilliant. But I liked the rest of the CD and finally got used to Gaslighting Abbie, so all was very good with Two Against Nature.
After a while I yearned for more Steely Dan and decided to buy Everything Must Go. The talking heads could not have been more wrong. If you like to let your hair down and rock out and sing along with Steely Dan, Everything Must Go blows away Two Against Nature. The reviewers said that Everything Must Go was recorded in a huff and rush when Walter Becker and Donald Fagen were not getting along too well, and the music reflected their inability to work together. This conclusion is entirely wrong.
Everything Must Go has more rock flavor and has several excellent songs such as Pixeleen, Slang of Ages, Green Book and the most powerful song I’ve heard in years Things I Miss The Most. Things I Miss The Most is a story about a person who divorces and loves his new freedom, but the good memories of the marriage continue to haunt him, making him second guess his divorce decision forever. Anyone who is considering divorce needs to hear this song and read the lyrics at the same time, which are available on the Steely Dan web site.
I found the lyrics for Everything Must Go to profoundly wonderful. If you like Steely Dan at all, you must have this CD. And for all the reviewers who say Everything Must Go is a B effort, you are so wrong.
Steely Dan: Two Against Nature vs. Everything Must Go – Feb 10, 08 (current page)
