Donald Fagen-Sunken Condos

Chazro,
Guilty as charged! What happened was this:
When the album first came out, I was in a hurry to hear it, so I downloaded it from iTunes. Then it hit me that without the album cover and liner notes, I was missing part of the experience, so I bought the CD on Amazon.
Then as I begin to listen to the album more, I realized that the sonic quality was far below what I was used to hearing from Steely Dan or Donald Fagan records. So I bought the high resolution download. (Which, by the way, seems to me to be the best sounding version so far.) I actually hit the point that you were talking about, however, when I considered buying the vinyl. At that point, it was like, "This is crazy. Why have four copies of the album I don't like that much?"
I think it's also partly that I have been such a huge fan for so long that I couldn't quite accept the idea that Donald would put out an album that I didn't like that much.
By the way, I agree with Marty that Walter Becker's 11 Tracks of Whack, is brilliant. There was a period of time a few weeks ago when Hat Too Flat (the chorus thereof) was stuck in my head for several days in a row. It also happens to be a really good sounding record, in its own, quirky way.

I may have said this before, but I can't remember and am too lazy to go back and read this thread...The use of carefully arranged vocal harmony always gets these guys bonus points from me. "Circus Money" is also brilliant, although maybe it requires some extra listening time for that fact to sink in. Regardless of the imagined "total point score" of any of this stuff in the run for the Steely Dan Related Output Championship, I think they put a lot of labor into their quirky music and like it or not, that always shows through.

Carlos Santana is supposed to have answered an interviewer's question about the sameness of his guitar solos with "so my mother recognizes me on the radio". Pop/rock music really isn't known for it's originality. If you play and perform for nearly 40 years you're just not going to keep evolving and growing. Even Miles "New Directions In Music" Davis stuck to jazz/funk for the final 20 years of his career. Fagen/Becker have found a niche that they do really well and I'm thankful they continue to produce anything.

Steely Dan et al have had a much higher than average (for pop music anyway) level of musical complexity and range of style since day one, and in that context there is a very large stash of musical ideas to plunder. I assume they don't care what the public thinks as long as the live shows sell out and somebody buys enough music from 'em to justify continuing, but in the context of having a long run with nothing to prove except to themselves I think the recent stuff is amazingly well done. It's good to remember one particular group who mostly think they're brilliant: Professional musicians.

Rebbi: I agree with your opinion on the quality of this recording. Fagen/Dan recordings are usually better than this. I'm wondering if anyone has heard the Japanese pressing?

Lately I've been wondering about alternative pressings generally. I try to buy my favorite artists on Japanese pressings whenever I can, because the clarity is just better across the board. But I feel like the best CDs in my collection (3 or 4) were pressed in France. These seem to have the highest resolution.

Does anyone have an opinion on international pressings? If I could, I would pursue French pressings more often. But now I think all European discs say "EU."

Hmmm, maybe I'll start this as a new thread.