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| Artist: Walter Becker
Label: Sonic 360
Category: Music
List Price: £13.99
Buy New: £9.28
You Save: £4.71 (34%)
New (19) from £8.50
Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 4823
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
UPC: 874357000460
EAN: 0874357000460
ASIN: B001AVUACG
Release Date: July 14, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 "Dark Horse Dub" - about sums it up really !! August 21, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Who'd have thought it !!
I don't know - it doesn't really seem right - the urbane always in control Mr Becker whose albums (solo or with Steely Dan) are always so immaculately produced doing reggae ! I mean reggae for God's sakes - and dub reggae too probably the "sloppiest" music going. It just should not fit - except it does. And it fits very well indeed.
I don't think, as many other people who have reviewed this CD obviously do, that Becker and Fagen are the be all and end all of music (go on tell me that's because I'm not "sophisticated" enough)but as Steely Dan they made some good albums and individually they have done the same. I still prefer "The Nightfly" but there again I have lived with that album for many years.
 Sadly, A Case of The Emperor's New Clothes August 12, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I'll start by nailing my colours to the mast. I am a fan. I have bought every Steely Dan and related solo release, plus other spin-offs, since Can't Buy A Thrill way back in 1972, when I was still in my old school. They are, or at least once were, the best band in the world. Ever. I've also had the great pleasure of seeing them live. But by a big margin this has to be the least interesting album to emerge from the whole Dan franchise.
I've observed over the years that many Steely Dan fans simply refuse to believe that Don and Walt are capable of serving up anything less than absolute perfection. And for a long while, that may just have been true. But the cracks have started appearing. Sadly, I just don't see where the euphoria for this new album comes from. I sense that it may be 'the Emperor's new clothes' syndrome at work.
I'd been looking forward to this new one for so long, but sadly Circus Money is just so ordinary. Whereas almost every track on Becker's first solo album 11 Tracks of Whack back in 1994 was brimful of originality, this is such a tired affair and most of the songs are so unmemorable. And on top of that, Walt sounds so disinterested. It's a largely one-paced affair, the reggae-lite arrangements are ultimately irritating (I just don't understand the comparisons with Haitian Divorce - that had verve and zip and, boy, it ROCKED) and, by and large, even the lyrics lack the Dan's normal bite. Give me "Surf and/or Die", "Cringemaker" "Hat Too Flat" "Down In the Bottom" and "Lucky Henry" over most of these cuts. I still listen to Tracks of Whack, 14 years on. I doubt that I'll be playing this new one in 14 weeks' time. Shame. Roll on the next Dan album, and hopefully a return to form.
Buy it for the five star "Paging Audrey".... August 2, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I'll get straight to the point and just say go to track 5 "Paging Audrey"
and press play- It is absolutely brilliant, easily as good as anything Steely Dan have ever done without a shadow of a doubt and stands out like a sore thumb in the company of Walter's latest batch of songs. Its not that the rest of the album is bad or anything, just that this track is so good that everything else pales by comparison.
The usual high production standards by anything Steely Dan are in order (courtesy this time of Larry Klein) as well as the standard lyrical cynicism that messrs Fagen and Becker are reknowned for.
The music itself is reggae (lite)- Think: SD's "Haitian Divorce" although there are one or two tunes here that do tend to ponder a little (similarly to Donald Fagen's latest "Morph The Cat") but these are generally in a minority (They'll probably get better with time).
Just simply get this for "Paging Audrey" and let the rest of it grow on you.
Sonic Perfection, move along..no filler here..move along... July 28, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Ok, first up, forget what you think you know about Becker just because you have 11 Tracks of Whack, that's like trying to compare WALL*E with CARS, you just cant.Fact.
So let's begin with production....if you need to find one album from the last 5 years that will kick your hifi into touch, this album is it. The production quality on this album is absolutely stunning, from the floor humping bass guitar to the spine tingling pianos thru to the chiled out but crystal clear vocal capture...it's a joy to just listen to the engineer and mixer's aural results....i cant praise the 'recording' enough...state of the art..but damn it, it's got VIBE!!,...it's got more polish than a shoe shop sales assistant but a rack full more SOUL!...how on earth they caught the beautiful sounds so well is a testament to quality mics and probably very high end pro tools HD but who cares about that, it kicks my hifi into touch and check this out...any of you with a dedicated sub woofer should check the bottom end.....Holy Sadowsky!...my neighbours love the album and they've only heard the sub bass!!..my old Rel Strata is newly imbibed with juicy kick , bass, and vocal drawl....turn this mutha up and turn this mutha out....the sound is something most modern artists should pay heed to and slap their producers (and thwow them to the gwound vewy woughly)for not achieveing this quality of sound...it brought a tear to my eye....
Enough of the technical stuff, Whats with Becker singing again?..well here is where you abandon all hope and enter into lyrical genius and better delivery than a UPS delivery boy, Becker more than matches his musical bro Mssr Fagen and to be honest?....slaps Morph with a wet NY fish and assigns it to the bargain basement in Tower on Times Square...the man can sing...but unlike the pseudo happy happy stylings of Don...Becker conveys a less than impressed slightly world weary cynical view on his mic and life is all the better for it......you can tell, he's either very intelligent or has spent the last 15 yrs honing his lyrics because as well as being very funny , very dry and very real, they are very interesting...so much to listen to...and yes...finally, we can see where the other 50% of Dan Steele has it's input...Becker's style is laid back, slighly lazy but delivered with the smooth east coast attitude that only gents of his age can truly convey and indeed, muster.
SO what about the songs?..check out the gorgeous Darkling Down....try NOT to sing along with the rifftastic chorus...it's a damn disgrace!....Downtown Canon...same thing....for an artist not known for modern pop ballad sing a long output, this album begs to be sang along to...yes it's a grower, no its not instantly known..it took me about 10 listens to really get into it and now its on repeat..the poor neighbors...aw eck...they need the education..........
The reggae sound to five of the tracks is utter genius and the playing is faultless.....such a chilled out sound.....you can put your beer on the cd and it'll have ice in it,such is the coolness of the backing vocals and riff guitar......add to the mix Keith's awesome laid back drummming and you got a piece of audio perfection...
I really cant praise this album enough, do yourselves a favour, buy it, turn it up and be prepared to have the time of your life.....altogether now...'Darling Down, it's a damned disgrace'..!!
Thanks Larry and Walt.....Grammy should be yours.....end of.
The dark side of Steely Dan July 22, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Walter Becker's previous solo album ("11 Tracks of Whack") was an optional purchase for many Steely Dan fans. Although it contained some great songs (notably "Junkie Girl"), it was slightly let down by average production and over-enthusiastic use of the drum machine, not qualities one usually associates with this band. In contrast, every Dan afficianado will want to buy a copy of "Circus Money", for one very simple reason. It contains at least two songs - "Downtown Canon" and "Paging Audrey" - that will immediately take their place as quintessential, 24 carat gold, spine tinglingly good, classic Steely Dan songs - high praise indeed, given the band's previous achievements. The rest of the album is very fine too, but these two tracks alone will justify the decision to buy for anyone with a serious interest in the band. "Circus Money" also identifies very clearly Walter Becker's distinctive contribution to the band's lyrical muse. The atmosphere of sleazy decadence, the pre-occupation with characters living marginal lives on the edge of society, the droll, self-deprecating humour with which the stories of these wayward characters are told - it's clear now that these essential ingredients of Steely Dan's rich imaginative world owe somewhat more to Becker than Fagen. There's also a freshness to the musical arrangements here, and the quality of the individual solos, that was sometimes (for me at least) missing from Donald Fagen's 2007 "Morph the Cat". Whilst Fagen's solo release contained, as always, much great music, there was a slight sense on occasions of some of the musicians being on auto-pilot, a noticeable tendency for some of the songs to follow a predicable course, as though they were sub-consciously modelled on an earlier Steely Dan vintage. If Fagen is to continue with his solo endeavours, he perhaps need to take a few more risks, as Becker has done here on "Circus Money". Personally I'd still prefer to see them working together, as the whole is even greater than the sum of the parts.
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