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| | Two Against Nature | | | Music Artist : | | Steely Dan | | Music Style : | | General | | Record Label : | | Giant Records / Wea | | Release Date : | | 2000-02-29 | | Store Price : | | $13.98 | | Artistopia's Price: $13.98 | | Usually ships in 24 hours | | |
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CD Tracks/Songs
Disc 11. Gaslighting Abbie
2. What a Shame About Me
3. Two Against Nature
4. Janie Runaway
5. Almost Gothic
6. Jack of Speed
7. Cousin Dupree
8. Negative Girl
9. West of Hollywood
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Other Artist Albums
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Customer Reviews of This Album/CD |
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 sophistication, satire and style
Submitted on: 2009-07-06 |
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The nay-sayers have their day but in the end great work like this rises above the noisome patter that passes for critiques. The people who refer to this as glorified elevator music are free to give Steely Dan a pass next time around. Smooth and sophisticated is not canned. The maturity of the production evident I these tracks fools people who are used to all the sturm und drang that passes for popular music today.
Reading the complaints that all the songs are the same is pretty sad but expected. There are none of the variable wanging riffs and thunderous hooks that beat their sameness set to different rhythms (more of today's excuse for popular music) into poor sounding bass vs. treble mediocrity here.
What is here is a subtle but observantly sharp musical performance at it's best. Becker and Fagen take full advantage of the audio tech heads to bring wit and clarity to their craft.
The first track, Gaslighting Abbie is pop decadence, sweet, potent but also subversive fun.
What a Shame About Me cuts straight to the ego driven life of foundering celebrity, life passing him by as he tries to remain relevant. From a musical perspective the arrangement is spare with obvious but low key hooks acting as a sparse but strangely rich landscape that carries the first person account through it's desperate odyssey.
Those are just the first two tracks and they're not the strongest in the line-up.
In the end a person either gets this stuff or they don't. Some nostalgia heavy fans will dismiss this as not as good as their past work in the seventies. That's too bad because this is as good and in some ways better.
This is music that digs deep and etches itself on your DNA if the listeners give in to it and stop demanding that their expectations be met. In fact this is just like their best work in that it creeps in and takes up residence.
Not everyone is bound to like this. Those who do will carry these musical extravagances with them until they shuffle off their mortal coils.
For what it's worth my two favorite tracks are Almost Gothic and West of Hollywood. These two guys never cease to provide me with a sense of musical wonder. |
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Gotta Love It
Submitted on: 2008-11-29 |
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| The classic sounds, top notch sound quality, smart azz lyrics, you gotta love it. This is as good as anything, yes even AJA , they have ever done. Less rock more the N.O. jazzy sounds, but delicious none the less. They need to keep working since the sparks still there. Plus no "featuring talentless Rap star" of the month like so many artists are forced to do by Lamo record companies. To me nothing ruins an album more than a "guest rapper" with no musical talent making childish rhymes over the music. |
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Tender hearts revealed
Submitted on: 2008-10-02 |
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This album is a departure in a big way from previous Steely Dan CD. While the great chord changes and musicianship are all here, this CD has "heart." Fagen and Becker understand that they have grown old and they act their age without losing their coolness.
This is a CD full of songs that pick up the perspective of "Hey Nineteen" from the Gaucho CD. Four tunes -- Janie Runaway, Almost Gothic, Cousin Dupree and Negative Girl -- deal with variations of geezer/sweet young (sometimes underage) thing relationship.
"What a Shame About Me" deals with the alienation that takes over when a person, full of talent and promise, never quite gets it together.
This is a CD that folks over 50 can connect with.
There is one more departure that should be mentioned: The tune "Negative Girl" is, to my ears, a whole level above any other Steely Dan tune with regard to amazing chord changes. Fagen and Becker demonstrate the existance of an alternate universe of song writing that they have not yet visited again. It is quite possibly the greatest Steely Dan tune ever. |
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Number 5 in my top 10 albums of all time
Submitted on: 2008-06-04 |
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| Here I am, over eight years post-release, letting all the world know the glory of this album. I first saw them perform tunes from 2vN on a PBS special. Needless to say, it's classic Steely Dan at its core, but it has a much jazzier and perhaps softer overtone. The lyrics are clever and have numerous possible interpretations. The sound quality is fabulous. Don't rely on 30 second clips to make your call on this album, listen to the whole thing with a bottle of scotch whiskey by your side and tell me you don't love it. |
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Dreamy slice of 'fireplace rock'
Submitted on: 2008-04-29 |
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Have twenty years really passed? You won't think so after hearing this CD. Fagen and Becker still write with doses of irony, humor, satire, and realism. Yes, that Fender Rhodes is still there! Gaslighting Alley was lifted from the movie of the same name. 'What a Shame About Me' chronicles a record-store worker living day to day who runs into his old girlfriend, now a star. Two Against Nature is kind of self-autobiographical. Janie Runaway is about a girl who hops a bus to NYC and finds a Sugar Daddy. Almost Gothic is about a guy who's in love with a girl, but he's not sure he can believe what she says. Jack of Speed-the title says it all. Cousin Dupree...about a guy who has the hots for his cousin (only from the mind of Steely Dan).
Well, you get the general idea. If you're lookimg for a bit of constancy in a world of constantly changing musical landscapes (and sometimes flat landscapes), you might want to consider getting this one.
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