Why do people rag on Steely Dan's "Gaucho" so much?

ok to satisfy a weird curiosity. was donald fagen ever considered a hottie? or atleast a hipster/scenester back in the day? just surprised to find nothing of old pics online with him cavorting with models types (what i'd expect for some reason) or even just out in NY scene.

As for the Dan's jazz element -- and the haters can tell the "pseudo" part to Phil Woods, Wayne Shorter, or for that matter, Fagen's piano playing -- has anyone else heard the Warne Marsh/Pete Christlieb album Becker and Fagen produced in the late '70s? Really fine postbop stuff.

Well, this review from the AMG, for example (again, a not uncommon take that I've seen in reviews of this album):

"Aja was cool, relaxed, and controlled; it sounded deceptively easy. Its follow-up, Gaucho, while sonically similar, is its polar opposite: a precise and studied record, where all of the seams show. Gaucho essentially replicates the smooth jazz-pop of Aja, but with none of that record's dark, seductive romance or elegant aura. Instead, it's meticulous and exacting; each performance has been rehearsed so many times that it no longer has any emotional resonance. Furthermore, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen's songs are generally labored, only occasionally reaching their past heights, like on the suave "Babylon Sisters," "Time Out of Mind," and "Hey Nineteen." Still, those three songs are barely enough to make the remainder of the album's glossy, meandering fusion worthwhile."

How one could call this "meticulous, exacting, and rehearsed" in an especially negative way that does not apply to any of their other albums (again, especially Aja) is beyond me.

The aforementioned Christgau (Gaucho gets the lowest rating of all the Dan albums):

"With Walter Becker down to composer credits and very occasional bass, Donald Fagen progresses toward the intellectual cocktail rock he's sought for almost a decade--followed, of course, by a cadre of top-drawer El Lay studio hacks, the only musicians in the world smart enough to play his shit. Even the song with Aretha in it lends credence to rumors that the LP was originally entitled Countdown to Lethargy. After half a dozen hearings, the most arcane harmonies and unlikely hooks sound comforting, like one of those electromassagers that relax the muscles with a low-voltage shock. Craftsmen this obsessive don't want to rule the world--they just want to make sure it doesn't get them. B-"

1993 Rating of Steely Dan's albums (Rolling Stone, I believe?)
4 Can't Buy a Thrill
4.5 Countdown
5 Pretzel Logic (somewhere, my dad is smiling)
4 Katy Lied
3 Royal Scam
4 Aja
2.5 Gaucho

Before that, one of the early editions of the Rolling Stone Record Guide (IIRC, Gaucho got a

That said, I can hear the sinister subtexts beneath the steely glint of the soporific music. For sure.

(There had to be some dissent here...)

By contrast, I've never connected as much with Aja for some reason -- possibly because the great Roger Nichols didn't engineer it (and you can tell) or maybe because they continue down the Royal Scam road but try to humanize it with songs like "Deacon Blues". Either way it doesn't really work -- by this point, they're just too hardened and SoCal'd out to pull it off.

Gaucho is just sort of the culmination of what started with Scam -- the soundtrack to hitting on the chick who works at the bank at the local Ramada bar. Yes, all the love has gone out of it -- every character's a total piece of shit, and relationships are all transactions of some kind. Yet it's also perfect in its way -- the singles are career highlights, sure. But at its core are "The Glamour Profession" and "Gaucho", with their soaring Tom Scott saxes and lyricons, brittle guitar parts and more than a touch of Broadway in the vocals and song construction. And then it all ends, yeah, on "Third World Man", which is just disturbing, slow and vague. It's hard to feel "satisfied" by it all, but an appropriate note to go out on for sure.

gahhhhh

Johnny's playroom
Is a bunker filled with sand
He's become a third world man

Smoky Sunday
He's been mobilized since dawn
Now he's crouching on the lawn
He's a third world man

Soon you'll throw down your disguise
We'll see behind those bright eyes
By and by
When the sidewalks are safe
For the little guy

I saw the fireworks
I believed that I was dreaming
Till the neighbors came out screaming
He's a third world man

Soon you'll throw down your disguise
We'll see behind those bright eyes
By and by
When the sidewalks are safe
For the little guys

When he's crying out
I just sing that Ghana Rondo
E l'era del terzo mondo
He's a third world man

OTMFM - about 'Aja,' that is.

Gaucho was the record where Fagen and sound engineer Roger Nichols wrestled endlessly with the drum machine that Nichols had developed. The strain between Fagen and Becker was starting to show, as well.

Despite all that, Gaucho has Babylon Sisters, one of the most harmonically advanced pop songs I can think of. And it gets stuck in your head! Must hear now...

there, I said it

OTM. I bought it when it came out and have tried to get into it about 15 times — and aside from the lecherous "Who has a friend named Melanie?/Who's not afraid to try new things?" couplet in "Janie Runaway" and a little bit of "West of Hollywood", absolutely nothing has stuck with me. It's actually hard to listen to...

this was the first proper Dan album i bought on vinyl, and it has always, always gotten more play than their other records. i *adore* the title track particularly because it is so mean and brutal and pressed up against this shiny veneer. brilliant shit.

yeah, barely xp

I assume it’s him on the opening bend lick

Anyway the drums own that track anyway

how many songs mention cherry wine besides "time out of mind" & "we don't have to take our clothes off (to have a good time)"?

i guess "babylon sisters" mentions kirschwasser...

I think Knopfler's part is that pretty simple part that comes in later on in the song, I remember reading about how they had him play for hours and hours and what made it onto the song was maybe a few bars, of a very simple phrase

not sure what version you jabronis are listening to but MKnopfler does all the leads over almost the entire of the version I have:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwgNbNfO_O8

check the left channel then he hits the phaser on the instrumental chorus then back to the left channel.

fuck wrong video, this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwgNbNfO_O8

3rd times a charm?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJW2NH-CTJ8

whew, yeah click that one. left channel, then phasor for the instru-chorus, then back to the left channel. stop listening to mp3s you jabronis.

I have been trying to burn out on this album by playing it nonstop for a week, but it's not working

― five six and (man alive), Tuesday, March 10, 2015 9:59 PM (five years ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is where I am right now. I have been immersing myself in the world this album builds--its numb depravity and decadence--for the past three days, and I don't think I can stop.

Someone on hipinion said the title track sounds like "a compilation of unusually well-produced local station IDs" which is spot-on and partly why I love that song so much

People who "rag" on Gaucho should be taken away and destroyed.

― retort pouch (retort pouch), Saturday, June 11, 2005 1:11 AM (fifteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm

The title track and "Third World Man" compete for best SD song.

40 years ago today

Mass Romantic yesterday, Gaucho today....what's next in line for the excellent album birthday celebration?

Seeing the Gaucho show in Morristown, NJ tonight. Has anyone seen them yet on this tour? They haven't done a Gaucho night yet, so I'm not sure exactly what to expect from the second set, but I'm crossing my fingers for "Bad Sneakers" and/or "Deacon Blues" which both seem like realistic possibilities...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bf7Dr7CzmM

Morris Mobley cover of Glamour Profession

fun cover, i like how he says "hoops mccain" instead of "hoops mccann," which makes me think he's talking about a black sheep member of that annoying family

We're double-bumping the Gaucho threads tonight.

Seeing the Gaucho show in Morristown, NJ tonight. Has anyone seen them yet on this tour? They haven't done a Gaucho night yet, so I'm not sure exactly what to expect from the second set, but I'm crossing my fingers for "Bad Sneakers" and/or "Deacon Blues" which both seem like realistic possibilities...

― J. Sam, Thursday, November 4, 2021 5:02 PM (nine months ago) bookmarkflaglink

In retrospect I was foolish to hope for "Deacon Blues." Looks like they only play it in the Aja shows :(

fantastic descriptions from the man himself

Donald explains Gaucho

new liner notes from the man himself for the upcoming reissue from Analogue Productions pic.twitter.com/dBlaEsYyZn

— Good Steely Dan Takes (@baddantakes) April 12, 2024