Who gets Goucho?

I don't think it's quite as good as their best, but would put it alondside Royal Scam and ahead of Katy Lied

I've got Gaucho twice in fact. As an LP and as a DVD-A. I could'nt resist buying the DVD-A to do a comparison.
The 24/96 stereo track on the DVD-A is excellent, it just beats out the Vinyl (on my humble Project RPM 6 TT I must hasen to add since I am sure a LP12 would change the rating order).

I feel Gaucho had a certain smoothness and maturity over what went before and has'nt been bettered by anything they have done since, though 2Ag Nature comes close

GEOFFP

I love the album and have done so for many years.

Also worth listening to Donald Fagen's Kamakiriad - very "Goucho-like" (or was Goucho "Fagen-like"......)

I agree with the comments about "Hey Nineteen"

Gaucho is a masterpiece. Along with Aja, one of their two best albums.

Try..........

Walter Becker's solo offering; the wonderfully titled '11 Tracks Of Whack'

There's some great 'grooves' here and 12 tracks!

Hey Nineteen is one of the first tracks that i can remember giving me goose bumps on listening ( on my LP12 back in the eighties). No longer have turntable and cannot replicate the feeling playing it on CD. Ive just changed my CDi for a Sony SACD player, but as Warners are going DVD-A i dont think i will get to hear a better digital version.Boo-Hoo

David

I'm with Peter and Nick on this, Gaucho remains one of the best Dan albums. It always surprises me when I read poor reviews like this one

I don't rate Gaucho as much as the other Dan albums, but that's not the same as not rating it! Along with 2VN it's the only one I haven't had as a "favourite Dan album" at some point, but I still give it a fair share of airplay and it has many sublime moments, and no actively duff ones (Steely Dan are very rare in not only making no bad albums, but no poor individual tracks IMHO).

You got to shake it baby you got to shake it baby!

Pete.

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Originally posted by Dave J:
It always surprises me when I read poor reviews like allmusic.com

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Much as I love the Dan, and agree that Gaucho has its sublime moments, I'm with allmusic's generally reliable Erlewine here. Gaucho was recorded during their coked-out days in La La Land, and it sounds like it.

A classic album and very representative of the things going on for Becker and Fagan at the time.

Recorded in New York (mostly) but full of themes of the west coast they had just left behind. Becker had been run over and had smashed up his leg badly (hence the fanzine title 'metal leg') and had also had to deal with the death of his girlfriend at his apartement from a heroin overdose.

They had spent months on a great track called 'the second arrangement' which got wiped by a sound engineer. After trying to recreate what they lost they gave up. If you ever get to hear the bootleg of the work in progress for this song you can hear what a classic they lost. All in all the album was a hugely expensive nightmare to complete, not helped by a new computer based program called Wendel which consumed hundeds of studio hours.

So IMO, once you get through the spartan structure and highly polished arrangements you find masterfully composed and considered songs full of themes of jaded self delusion, escapism and plenty of dubious activities cunningly coated in musical sugar.

IMO you ain't quite a Dan fan if you dont get Gaucho.

As an aside, as much as I like 2vN, I think that 'Everything Must Go' is their most consistent and funky outing since aja. The title track is one of the best tracks they have ever done IMO.

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Originally posted by Simon Matthews:
So IMO, once you get through the spartan structure and highly polished arrangements you find masterfully composed and considered songs...IMO you ain't quite a Dan fan if you dont get Gaucho.

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An excellent post, Simon. However, as a fellow Dan man, I respectfully suggest: 1. Yes, the songs are of a high standard, but the fact you have to get through the other stuff lessens the impact of the album (which is still an essential one, of course); 2. You can "get" Gaucho without rating it as highly as, for example, Aja; 3. I'm with you on EMG, even if it is about 20 minutes shorter than it should be.

Davie

Bhoyo

I agree that the polish can act as a barrier and my tongue was firmly in my cheek hence the smily face.

I'm going to stick Time out of Mind on very loudly tonight, the 'polite' nature of the album is greatly reduced when cranked up to realistic levels.

It's nice to hear that you rate EMG also, at over 40 mins it is a fair length. I don't know about 20 mins short, in truth my ideal Dan album would come in at over two hours with news of another one in immediate production!!

Although I like Gaucho as a whole, Babylon Sisters is truly dire, so bad infact that I'd have listed it in the hates thread had it not been hijacked by fascists.

Of the Steely Dan albums released before the duo's long pause, Gaucho is my favourite. I haven't had time, yet, to decide how highly I rate Two Against Nature and Everything Must Go (although the latter is certainly one of my favourite albums by any artist). Babylon Sisters and Thirld World Man are sublime - beautiful, mysterious songs by composer/musicians at the peak of their powers. As for the accusation that they were made under the influence of large quantities of cocaine ... well, maybe coke works sometimes!

An interesting "in between" set which is a psuedo live recording is the DVD they released confusingly called 2AN but totally different from the CD of the same name.
The DVD has new performances of such classics as:
Black Friday, Kid Charlemagne, FM, Pretzel logic, and Josie aswell as Babylon Sisters.

This is good reminder of earler output at least up to the standard of "Gaucho" if not better than.

Incidentally the DTS sound track on this DVD is excellent if you are OK about being "inside" the band.

Gaucho - an album of two sides (obviously before any one points this out) in as far as side a is superb in my opinion - particularly "hey nineteen" and "glamour profession". I am not so keen on side b with the exception of "third worl man".

The quality of the recording is superb.

Gaucho is only bettered by Aja and The Royal Scam in my view.

Funnily enough I just can't get into Everything Must Go - although I am trying. I really want to like their newest but it does not work for me (too jazz/funk perhaps).

Time to spin Gaucho now.

Rgds

Mike

As ever some very erudite contributions from Mr Mathews! In many ways it is an album with a mass of contridictions but particularly on the production/content front. As a whole it is over produced (many 'Dan albums are to a greater or lesser etent) but even though a lot of the instruments sound like samples it really gets the foot tapping with maximum PRAT. On a another matter I sometimes wonder whether 'Aja' is a touch overated; I am afraid the title track does grate somewhat.

i think Harpo was better than Gaucho

I think 'Steely Dan' in many ways are the ultimate love/hate band. Whereas I really enjoy their music my wife hates them in a serious way.

I had the same problem, I kept the dan.

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Originally posted by Simon Matthews:
I had the same problem, I kept the dan.

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Davie