Donald Fagen-Sunken Condos

Even on a bad day the newer Fagan/Becker stuff is currently much more interesting than 99% of the crap out there, and that's all I can ask of them. Actually, I can ask of them to make more of it, as I'm sure they're hanging on my every word. I listen to Jazz and Classical most of the the time anyway so I don't care that much, although I did ask Peter Washington (Bill Charlap Trio bass player...I mixed a live show of theirs a few weeks ago) about opening for Steely Dan and he said something like, "They're brilliant but a bunch of perverts"...and that made me smile. I expect nothing less from Becker and Fagan.

I admit it required a bit of time to warm up to, but I am loving "Sunken Condos".
I like the sq on my system.
Going to put it on now!

Regards,

I agree 101% with Wolf! There are a few of the above posters that say "it's the same old stuff"...DUH! That's why I listen to Steely Dan...I LIKE THEIR STUFF!!!

I also listen to the Eagles, the Beatles, Van Morrison, Elton John, Jackson Browne, etc. Know why? Because I LIKE THEIR STUFF! If they changed so dramatically, I wouldn't like their stuff.

That's why we all listen and like certain artists. It's not rocket science guys. If you want something different, find another artist.

Chazro,
Guilty as charged! What happened was this:
When the album first came out, I was in a hurry to hear it, so I downloaded it from iTunes. Then it hit me that without the album cover and liner notes, I was missing part of the experience, so I bought the CD on Amazon.
Then as I begin to listen to the album more, I realized that the sonic quality was far below what I was used to hearing from Steely Dan or Donald Fagan records. So I bought the high resolution download. (Which, by the way, seems to me to be the best sounding version so far.) I actually hit the point that you were talking about, however, when I considered buying the vinyl. At that point, it was like, "This is crazy. Why have four copies of the album I don't like that much?"
I think it's also partly that I have been such a huge fan for so long that I couldn't quite accept the idea that Donald would put out an album that I didn't like that much.
By the way, I agree with Marty that Walter Becker's 11 Tracks of Whack, is brilliant. There was a period of time a few weeks ago when Hat Too Flat (the chorus thereof) was stuck in my head for several days in a row. It also happens to be a really good sounding record, in its own, quirky way.

I may have said this before, but I can't remember and am too lazy to go back and read this thread...The use of carefully arranged vocal harmony always gets these guys bonus points from me. "Circus Money" is also brilliant, although maybe it requires some extra listening time for that fact to sink in. Regardless of the imagined "total point score" of any of this stuff in the run for the Steely Dan Related Output Championship, I think they put a lot of labor into their quirky music and like it or not, that always shows through.

Carlos Santana is supposed to have answered an interviewer's question about the sameness of his guitar solos with "so my mother recognizes me on the radio". Pop/rock music really isn't known for it's originality. If you play and perform for nearly 40 years you're just not going to keep evolving and growing. Even Miles "New Directions In Music" Davis stuck to jazz/funk for the final 20 years of his career. Fagen/Becker have found a niche that they do really well and I'm thankful they continue to produce anything.

Steely Dan et al have had a much higher than average (for pop music anyway) level of musical complexity and range of style since day one, and in that context there is a very large stash of musical ideas to plunder. I assume they don't care what the public thinks as long as the live shows sell out and somebody buys enough music from 'em to justify continuing, but in the context of having a long run with nothing to prove except to themselves I think the recent stuff is amazingly well done. It's good to remember one particular group who mostly think they're brilliant: Professional musicians.

Rebbi: I agree with your opinion on the quality of this recording. Fagen/Dan recordings are usually better than this. I'm wondering if anyone has heard the Japanese pressing?

Lately I've been wondering about alternative pressings generally. I try to buy my favorite artists on Japanese pressings whenever I can, because the clarity is just better across the board. But I feel like the best CDs in my collection (3 or 4) were pressed in France. These seem to have the highest resolution.

Does anyone have an opinion on international pressings? If I could, I would pursue French pressings more often. But now I think all European discs say "EU."

Hmmm, maybe I'll start this as a new thread.

I have the Japanese CD, sounds good but I've never heard the domestic version.

My "Condos" CD sounds fine. Lucky I guess...

I don't know, saying Donald Fagen released a bad sounding recording borders on blasphemy! Not to mention practically an impossibility based on his well documented obsession with superior sound quality! I think what I said earlier about the music also pertains to the sound quality. Fagen's set the bar so high some people expect their systems to levitate or something!;)

Well, I don't expect my system to levitate, I just expect it to sound as good as Morph or the newer Steely Dan's and remasters, and it doesn't. I assumed these problems happen during the manufacturing process, but I guess I don't know much about it. Rebbi, maybe you and I just got duds.

Fagen's bar is set incredibly high

he lowered it a little with the way over emphasized bass on the Morph the Cat vinyl

Condos is stellar in the cd, and especially on the white translucent vinyl

Rfprice: Yeah, I don't think this album would've made it past Roger Nichols (rest in peace). Where's the awesome clarity he brought to Two Against Nature or Everything Must Go? In the midrange that album sounds to me all airless and congealed. Or maybe my standards for SD/WB/DF albums are just unrealistic. By the way, I don't expect my system to levitate: too much danger of breaking a tube on my amps! :-P

Morph the Cat makes me run to turn down my subwoofer level control every time...not sure if that was intentional or a mastering error or what...but I bet there's more than one blown woofer in the wake of that album.

Wolf-garcia,
I think it's deliberate. Somewhere on the 'Gon there is a thread about Morph when it first came out. Somebody posted that they took that CD to dealers to evaluate the low end performance of speakers, and somebody else in the thread jumped all over them saying that the bass on that album is bloated and exaggerated and should never be used to evaluate anything. I also have the vinyl and if anything, the bass on that version is MORE pronounced!

Here's a nice article about recording "Sunken Condos".

Onhwy61...thanks for the link to the article. Very interersting. It's kinda neat that they can record specific instruments in specific studio rooms to get the best sound out of each of them. Then mix them all together for the final album.

I still think this is an excellent recording and record.

Ya gotta love this quote; "...it's not so much about equipment as knowing the difference between what sounds good, and what only sounds good for a minute. You have to know what's going to sound good next week." He's referring to the studio but tell me it doesn't fit perfectly within this hobby.

I thought the talk about money constraints was interesting. But what really opened my eyes was that Fagen recorded his demos using Garageband. I also liked the insights about getting the drum groove without making it metronome precise.

Really interesting article, thanks for posting the link, Onhwy61!

Okay, so what I now know is that Sunken Condos sounds all closed in, muffled and dry because that's the sound they were going for. Which mystifies me completely, but there you go.

Thanks for the heads up, Mofimadness. I bought "Sunken Condos" today and I think it's another Donald Fagan classic. If you liked "Nightfly" you'll like this one. I also picked up the mfsl/SACD of Gram Parsons "GP" classic.

Although I think "Nightfly" is his best, "Sunken Condos" is very good.