Tag Archives: Steely Dan
1975 COUNTDOWN | #10 — #6
Finally we arrive at the Top 10. The first of two parts… * #10 POPOL VUH — EINSJÄGER UND SIEBENJÄGER Probably my favourite Popol Vuh album, Einsjäger und Siebenjäger is also one of their most rock-orientated, with guitars well in evidence. This more muscular sound serves the music well and pulls the pieces back from […]
I RUN TO YOU
September 23rd is the forty-eighth anniversary of the release of Steely Dan’s Aja. ♥ From its striking cover—timeless in its enigmatic simplicity—to the fadeout of the final song, Aja resides comfortably in classic album territory. Several other ‘classics’ came out in 1977, commercial monsters including Fleetwood Mac Rumours and the Eagles Hotel California. But where […]
1974 COUNTDOWN | THE LIST
Here is the entire 1974 COUNTDOWN, with links to the original posts. Following this are the other 1974 posts including live albums, film soundtracks and jazz. And here is an invitation to add their your own favourite 1974 albums in the Comments… ranked or unranked, two or twenty, curated our plucked out of the ether, […]
1974 COUNTDOWN | #30 — #26
#30 STEELY DAN — PRETZEL LOGIC What is the difference between a VG and an EX Steely Dan album? Countdown To Ecstasy from 1973 came in at #21 on the 73 FROM ’73 COUNTDOWN while Pretzel Logic sits at a more modest (but still creditable) #30. There’s something here about expectations, of course, but that […]
THE NATURE OF DAN
It was no secret. Steely Dan fans knew the 1980 LP Gaucho was the last offering from studio perfectionists Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. They’d reached a pinnacle of consummate musicianship with their penultimate album Aja and were done with Dan. In fact, they were done with each other. So the buzz of excitement around […]
1973 COUNTDOWN: #30 — 21
30 ROXY MUSIC — STRANDED Don’t tell anyone, but I think I accidentally reversed this and For Your Pleasure (#72) in a moment of spreadsheet/red wine confusion. Such things can happen when you’re scrambling to write 70+ reviews and take all those photos. Oops. In sum, this third album is terrific but I think its […]
ALBUM COVERS | INSTA EDITION
For reasons I can neither fully comprehend nor explain in any coherent way, I decided a couple of weeks ago to dive into Instagram. Having had a Tumblr account since the dawn of Vinyl Connection I largely ignored the world’s largest image sharing social app, a choice that says much about my ability to pick […]
A DAY IN THE LIFE (OF A TURNTABLE)
Today I thought it would be fun to dig a little deeper into the collection and spin some albums that haven’t seen the turntable for ages. Years. In some cases, decades. The only rule was to wait until (at least one side of) the record finished before choosing the next. 8:30 am We had friends […]
THE FUTURE’S SO BRIGHT
When it came to writing songs for his first solo album after leaving Steely Dan, Donald Fagen heeded that timeless advice to authors, write about what you know. The record was The Nightfly and the year was 1982, though you wouldn’t know it from the cover. Fagen is photographed in a Peter Gunn era radio […]
I GOT THE NEWS
[Recording: Bright daytime voice over fade of smoky alto sax solo] This is independent station WJAZ, all night jazz and conversation. Now back to your host, Lester The Nightfly LESTER Hello Baton Rouge. It’s coming up to 2:15 on a drizzly Saturday night… or Sunday morning if you’re that way inclined. Continuing our tribute to […]
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