if you wanna take a listen:

http://www.mp3.com/albums/20090517/summary.html

In a fair world, "Brite Nightgown" would be a hit. A song about death that sounds like a cross between George Clinton and Price Is Right incidental music. I picture Bill Cosby from his "The Bill Cosby Show" (the 70's one where he was a basketball coach) taking Ebeneezer Fagen through A Christmas Carol.

Yeah, I'm gonna try and pick this one tomorrow. I'm a Danhead, so I'm down with the Fagen. From what I've heard so far, I'm really liking it.

PMYSIPLSKTHX!!!

Got it for $9.99 at Tower tonight.

(To Spoon It May Concern - I also got a $4.99 Kate Bush CD single of "King of the Mountain" with a cover of "Sexual Healing," of all things.)

Got this tonight, and have listened a few times thusly to it. All I can think is, gee I wish this was a Dan album. While Fagen has his own tributaries he follows down in his songwriting, for the most part, this could, in fact be a Dan album. The song structure, the snarky and sometimes swarmy lyrics are definitely there. One could say that this alludes to Fagen being the driving force behind SD, and while I may agree to a certain extent, this is by no means the same Fagen we've seen on past outings. Maybe its age nipping at his heels, but this album is tight. The playing and songwriting are completely in tune with what a listener (who would pick this up) wants to hear, and this is by far the strongest material to come out of any Dan-related camp in awhile.

*Titters*

going to give this a stream right now. don't know that i quite deserve to call myself a danhead being born post-gaucho, but i'm a fan.

was just giving fagen's allmusic entry a peruse and i had never even heard of "the nightfly" until 5 minutes ago. from what AMG had to say about it, sounds like there's no way i couldn't enjoy it. any consensus?

I think The Nightfly is one of the best albums you could own, but not everyone would agree with that. It isn't all that long and it's a little like the Broadway showtune vesion of The Dan, but that doesn't diminish how clever the songs are.

that broadway showtune bit is actually incredibly discouraging. there's almost nothing i hate more than broadway show tunes, but i imagine this is still worth checking out.

I don't mean full bore Memory-all-alone-in-the-moonlight crap. I mean more like it's stylized and sweet. Comparing something like "Walk Between The Raindrops" with "Haitian Divorce" would be like comparing Talking Heads "Road To Nowhere" with "Don't Worry About The Government" Both good, but one more stylized and cute than the other.

you have succeeded with your clever talking heads analogy. now i understand. and am listening to more songs about buildings and food

The Nightfly is as good as any '70s Dan and much better than any '00s Dan or the other solo albums.

On 4 or 5 listens, Morph the Cat is not making me purr. The again it took me months to suss out the gems in Kamakiriad.

First listen of Morph makes me think of it as solid but not stellar. We'll see how it grows.

"IGY" is my favorite song by either Dan or Fagen-solo.

I've not heard Morph the Cat but I often think Fagen needs Becker's more 'rock' approach to make his music palatable to the general listener.

'The Night Fly' is a good example of that. I mean as much as I like 'The Good-Bye Look' on a certain kitsch level most Obnerites would not like or understand that song at all...

I think Fagen is extremely unconcerned with whether or not anyone thinks he rocks. Man don't give a fuck. He does swing pretty good though.

Is he still hissing when he sings? Man, that annoys me.