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| | Everything Must Go | | | Music Artist : | | Steely Dan | | Music Style : | | General | | Record Label : | | Reprise / Wea | | Release Date : | | 2003-06-10 | | Store Price : | | $18.98 | | Artistopia's Price: $14.99 | | Usually ships in 24 hours | | |
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CD Tracks/Songs
Disc 11. The Last Mall
2. Things I Miss The Most
3. Blues Beach
4. Godwhacker
5. Slang Of Ages
6. Green Book
7. Pixeleen
8. Lunch With Gina
9. Everything Must Go
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Other Artist Albums
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Customer Reviews of This Album/CD |
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 Steely Dan? don't think so
Submitted on: 2009-06-16 |
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This is what happens when musicians think they have nothing left to prove. They show up with nothing to sing and play, only they don't know it. With 40 minutes of tedium these songs could more aptly be named dull jazz grooves #1-9 and this isn't even good jazz. Fagen's vocals sound like he's trying to be a back-up singer. Becker's bass sounds like he plays a few bars and then loops the rest of his part.
Somebody should stop these guys using the Steely Dan name. The legacy demands more. Sure, Becker and Fagen claim to have written and arranged all the music during their 70s heyday. Fagen hasn't written a good song since 1982. As the band shrank during the 70s so did the musicmaking. That says a lot about the contributions from the original members of the band. Everything must go? It left a long time ago. |
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 The Great Gatzby of the 21st Century
Submitted on: 2009-04-23 |
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I am puzzled as to why there is a group of haters surrounding the last Steely Dan release; " Everything Must Go" delivers in all respects Dan fans have grown accustomed to. First rate musicality, tight arrangements without a second wasted, cryptic, loaded lyrics peppered with symbolism fit for "deep" interpretations of modern life. What's not to love? Perhaps familiarity breeds contempt.....
Donald and Walter are masters of innovation; it is possible that their talent raises expectations past a reasonable level. However, "Everything...." is no slouch. The song cycle displays a wariness that is quite appropriate for the anti-climactic descent of the 21st Century. All the pretty promises in bubbles we'd been given burst, one by one, with Becker and Fagen there chronicling each burn out. The upbeat melodies belie the true meaning of most of the songs; these are not tunes paying homage to nostalgia. "The Last Mall" is bouncy in tempo, dire in meaning. Fagen is not singing of falling off a cliff of happiness in "Blues Beach", though the melody and tempo would suggest so. No, this is another cry of desperation wrapped in a picnic theme. Personally, the ironic use of jazzy, fun music, combined with rather dour observations and prophesies, places this work among the finer offerings in a VERY fine canon.
We always want what we can't have, a strange paradox among Dan fans with this effort. Apparently Danophiles wanted something completely out of the box.... Donald and Walter produced yet another superb album, but fans wanted something different. Wry irony and symbolic word play didn't do it for many this time around. What a shame.... the boys achieved another masterpiece with a lovely soundtrack surrounding relevant, eloquent observations. |
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Better Than Better Than Ezra
Submitted on: 2009-01-19 |
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| I mean I'm no music expert, but I am an exceptionally brilliant person and very good looking (in the boy next door Doris Day way), and I know what I like and I love to analyze why I like it and that's why these Amazon and YouTube boards are so endlessly fun. Oh and I grew up on the block they composed CBAT. Very strange to be explaining or "reviewing" music -- it being about as subjective a matter as color or mating preferences. Yet, or therefore, here I am. In this case, it's simple: New album from one of my fave bands, whose work, for many reasons, I prefer to listen to, on average, than any other band's work except maybe The Cars (who are vastly underrated and misunderstood). It seems, by some cosmically sanctioned logic ,that exceedingly few albums contain more than three songs I really love, which means care to listen to more than once or twice. This doesn't count "best of" albums, The Cars' debut, Def Leppard's Hysteria, and even of those, few bands put out more than half a dozen songs in their entire careers I happen to want to listen to over and over. That's just me, and in this case of Steely Dan, I have consistently really liked 3 or 4 cuts off each of their albums, rarely more. Aja and Gaucho turned out 5 each -- the only thing I don't listen to off of Gaucho for example is My Rival. Two Against Nature turned out 5 good ones too though not as enjoyable on the whole as Aja or Gaucho (save WOH): Almost Gothic, West of Hollywood (ranked among handful of all time favorite SD songs), Jack of Speed, Negative Girl, and Cousin Dupree. Wetside Story from this period would have been better than all but WOH, but that's another (sad) story - ed, FREE WETSIDE STORY! Everything Must Go contains 4 gooduns: Pixeleen, Godwhacker, Lunch With Gina and Slang of Ages not always in that order but with the last being the least. Now why on earth anybody thinks What A Shame About Me, or Janie Runaway, or Things I Miss The Most, or EMG itself are anything but dirgie bores is why I love hangin around this place (Earth I mean) - is it melody they lack? I dunno, but I don't listen to them, nor Green Book either. I don't get their appeal. I mean I do believe my taste to be at least consistent if not particularly well informed. I'm happy to be instructed. But sophistication doesn't mean knowing why, it means caring why. And my extraordinarily sophisticated rating for EMG is 4 stars cuz I'd still rather listen to Green Book better than ezra. |
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 Favorite Steely cd! (sorry)
Submitted on: 2008-07-22 |
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| I'm sorry but this is my favorite complete Steely Dan album. While there are specific singles from older cd's that are classic, as a whole, for me, this one's, the one. |
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Dan of Ages
Submitted on: 2008-03-20 |
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Update: I saw Steely Dan perform live in August 2009, and they were spectacular. Still, I was a bit disappointed that they played nothing from this CD. For some reason, many fans have ignored it or given it bad marks. I can't imagine why, because I love it.
Although SD got their belated Grammy award for "Two Against Nature," this is a better recording. It's more soulful and funkier. Yes, it's miraculous how Steely Dan takes those basic R&B and funk riffs and turns them into something fresh, and even beautiful. Just when I think I know what's coming next, we end up at some Twilight Zone location like "The Last Mall" or "Blues Beach," and I'm blown away by the humor, drive, arrangements, and mood. After over 30 years at work, Donald Fagen's vocals are better than ever. All the harmony vocal work on "Everything Must Go" is great. The musicianship, as usual, is superlative. The subject matter of the songs is typically ironic, cryptic, apocalyptic -- not a romantic moment to be found. But then, who comes to Steely Dan for romance? I'm here for the impeccable musical values and full, distinctive command of the jazz/fusion idiom. Whatever I imagine the lyrics may mean, there's no escaping the funky hook of a song like "Godwhacker." Truly great stuff. And I like Walter Becker's vocal skills. Here he graces us with a laid-back, hipper-than-thou rap on "Slang of Ages," with its lovely, lazy, dissonant chorus. Drop me off in Groovetime...soothe me with the Slang of Ages...rhythm and blues, jazz and rock, rolled up into a sweet little package.
It's notable just how often the words "gorgeous" and "beautiful" come to mind when listening to songs with lyrics that are strange and sardonic. Steely Dan's lyrics say they don't give a damn about anything, but the quality of "Eveything Must Go," like all their work, belies that conceit. Fagen and Becker are perfectionists, they care a great deal, and in this day of American Idol dilettantism, it's a relief to have Steely Dan in our midst.
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