Steely Dan – Gaucho

A streamlined, slick & mellow, immaculately produced w/ their standard complex ideas, classic SD tunes & a cool sophisticated feel w/ an emphasis on jazz-funk-pop that holds its own. Somewhat slightly inferior when measured against their brilliant six other preceding albums but still way ahead of others. The silky-smooth feel fits together gracefully w/ Fagen’s intentionally cryptic, obtuse vocals.
Early 80s cocktail lounge perfectionism.

Gaucho is the seventh studio album by the American rock band Steely Dan, released by MCA Records on November 21, 1980. The album marked a significant stylistic shift for the band, with more focus on rhythm and atmosphere than their earlier work, and fewer harmonically complex chord progressions, but the recording sessions demonstrated the group's typical obsessive nature and perfectionism, as they used at least 42 different musicians, spent over a year in the studio, and far exceeded the original monetary advance given by the record label. At the 24th Annual Grammy Awards, Gaucho won Best Engineered Recording – Non-Classical, and was nominated for Album of the Year and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals.

The making of the album was plagued by a number of creative, personal, and professional problems, and, once it was completed, there was a three-way legal battle between MCA, Warner Bros., and Steely Dan over the rights to release it. After the album was released, jazz pianist Keith Jarrett sued Walter Becker and Donald Fagen for copyright infringement, claiming the title track plagiarized "'Long As You Know You're Living Yours" from his 1974 album Belonging, and he was given a co-writing credit. Gaucho proved to be the final studio album released by Steely Dan until Two Against Nature nearly 20 years later.

A great pressing in my opinion. Punchy and vibrant. Dead flat and silent. Very pleased with this.

Not the best pressing. The mastering isn't as clear as I have heard it on other LPs. Guacho is one of those albums that benefits greatly from the invention of digital media anyways, so it's harder to compete. Overall, its good; just not good enough.