The other day when I was trying to decide on my Top Ten albums for that thread dealing with that topic, I almost included the title album but elected not to. I could easily have listened to it at least as much as the ones I listed, along with Steely Dan’s Aja from that same period.
My reluctance to include it in my list led me to YouTube where it would appear that all the cuts are now included. The wiki article The Nightfly - Wikipedia has much data to add to the YouTube facts, but I wanted to link to NEW FRONTIER - DONALD FAGEN ( ! ORIGINAL VIDEO ! ) to see if any others here have as strong an affinity for the album as I do.
Where else to go with the thread depends on your ideas.
I also have flashbacks to the days (and nights) I spent in radio. There’s so much of Fagen’s imagery in Deacon Blues that pertains to radio, too. The thing for me with the album is that it has two levels of nostalgia for me: one for the period when the album was popularly played on the air; the other for the period (50’s and 60’s) it referred to so well.
That album was so long in production that it was the musical equivalent of vaporware, the Duke Nukem Forever of music. Audio industry magazines had articles about the great Roger Nichols tied up for a year doing nothing but recording drum sounds - not actual drumming, just sounds to be sampled to replace each drum strike when the actual drums were eventually recorded. And when the album finally came out, all that care - hell, obsession - was in service to a fairly weak set of songs.
I should listen to it again, as my view of it was probably colored by knowledge of it’s history.
All of that was history by the time I found it. I like its atmospheric groove - Snowbound makes me feel snuggly cold even in the middle of summer.
I got Nightfly later, and was really happy and surprised to hear two or three songs I barely remembered from radio play when I was a little kid. It is a fantastic album.
Even Fagen’s worst song is better than 90% of most popular music from any era.
Yes. I’ve not admitted to friends that I like the Dan, but the solo “Nightfly” is a feat of nature. I used to love that one with “Security Joan” on it – a recent-ish Fagen album – and had just picked up a nice Rhodes piano at the time, so of course I was all about figuring out what was happening on that.
You want support? Here. Steely Dan is the greatest all-time band ever (except of course for The Beatles who are untouchable at the top of the pantheon). Not a single track of any album was ever less than good. Nobody else, not even The Beatles, can approach that.
Steely Dan regrettably broke up in 1981 and have not released any albums since. Don’t try to tell me anything different.
Well, I’ll take the support. Just that, generally, it’s been pretty uncool to like Steely Dan in rock circles for at least fifteen years. I’m not ashamed – the musicianship is high and widely-distributed. I even bought the Homespun videos of Donald Fagen “teaching” (not sure he taught that much, but fun to see him play in a small setting) to cop some of what he did about ten years ago.
ETA – of course, Steely Dan is gone. But Becker and Fagen can make albums together still! It’s a veritable phoenix!
A shameless plug again for the Homespun Don. Fagen video – it’s not so much an instructional, as getting to watch the man play some great tunes with him and … damnit, can’t remember … Warren … – you’ll never hear “Josie” the same way again. It’s akin to the Dr. John Homespun videos – a private concert.
And yet, I was pissed about five or six years ago when somebody said, “Hey, you look just like Donald Fagen over there!” Thanks very little, chooch!
I went to a music college with a strong sound recording program. Steely Dan appreciation was practically a required course. I never saw them live but I did get to see the NY Rock and Soul Revue back in the early 90s, which was amazing.
And I really think that the video for “New Frontier” should be the standard to which all other music videos should be held. It’s fun and stylish, it has a storyline and clever animation, and I really, really want that girl’s dress and hair combs.
I’m glad for this thread – I lost the CD years ago in a ove and haven’t thought of it in a long time. But I really liked it a lot, and I especially enjoyed his cover of Ruby.
