Steely Dan - Gaucho (2003 Remaster) [SACD]

Gaucho is the seventh studio album by the American Jazz rock band Steely Dan. Released in 1980, it was their final studio album before a 12 year hiatus.
Their next studio album Two Against Nature did not emerge until 2000. The songs marked a significant stylistic change for Steely Dan, introducing a more minimal, groove and atmosphere based format. The harmonically complex chord changes that were a distinctive mark of earlier Steely Dan songs are mostly absent here. Songs usually revolved around a certain rhythm or mood, a definite departure from the suite-like style of “Aja”, the title track of their previous record. This was also the last Steely Dan album to feature Michael McDonald’s back-up vocals.
All Music Review
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.