New remastering of Steely Dan's Katy Lied review by Fremer
I don't have a turntable, but in this case, the remastered material is streamable. I did a bit of listening last night and it sounds a bit better, but it’s still far short of Aja, so there’s a let-down effect. “It sounds better” is not the sonic experience of “Wow, this is amazing.”
Still, better is better, and I'll settle for better.
FREMER REVIEW IS HERE: https://trackingangle.com/music/steely-dan-katy-lied-uhqr-review
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Having heard KL on both a STELLAR rig and my modest setup,I never thought it was inferior as written what Fagan and Becker thought. I don't always agree with this guys puffery about his high priced LP's but in this case, I hear what he writes" https://better-records.com/collections/new-arrivals/products/steelkatyl_2502x Always preferred the songwriting of KL over the tired Aja-still a great album.
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There was always something about how NOT perfect Katy Lied quality was that I for some reason always liked. A huge chunk of that is absolutely contextual though: like, in the basement with step dad while working on the wood stove, or building cabinets and he played a tape from the album he played on his old two-body Sony tape player boom box he made from the record....so LO FIDELITY was as much a part of the love as the music itself, which obviously was too. Steely Dan was a big part of my growing up in NE PA/NYC. Katy for some reason was always my favorite.
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Without judging any of the musical content, I find a number of SD recordings really shy of the audiophile mark. KL -- It's decent sounding but there is a fuzzy quality to the highs and the vocals are too recessed. It is better on this mix but still below other SD recordings. Nightfly -- really painful to listen to; digital, bright, harsh, strident. Almost no combination of gear (tubes, etc.) have made it sound very good or easy to listen to. Gaucho -- bad in the Nightfly way. Moments of real audiophile bliss on here, but overall, it's hard to listen to all the way through. Glare-nightmare. Aja -- very good to excellent but still not the best of SD or Fagen corpus. Kamakiriad and Sunken Condos (Fagen) -- ok, now we're talking. This is a fantastic sounding album; lots of space, great midrange and highs. Lots of space. Morph the Cat (Fagen) -- Also very good. This album is really crammed with overlays and so while it sounds sonically good (tonally), it's not the "wide open road" feeling I get from Kamakiriad and Sunken Condos. Royal Scam is just ok; I'd put it between KL and Aja. Y'all can fill in the rest. Or not. |
