The Nightfly

Adult Contemporary. Some interesting stuff, but even more sterile than Steely Dan. Exceptions: I.G.Y. wiht it's new-wave tinged funk, "New Frontier" which has a very soothing melodic chord progression - I could listen to this all day - a kind of pulsing 16th note rhythm underneath the signature Fagan smooth vocals. And finally "The Goodbye Look," this pseudo-carribean thing that is just silly.
Overall not as awesome as Steely Dan, still pretty good. No rough edges, sometimes you need this. Yacht rock!

Lekker jaren '80. Wel weer één waar ik mij niet zo aan erger. We zijn er al een paar tegengekomen. De vergeetbare jaren '80 platen. Op zich knap. Maar ik noteer toch gewoon die 3.

Now that your kids are all grown up and off at university, it's just you and the wife at home. Things are comfortable, but dare you admit... uninspired? You're so entwined as a couple that you feel like you've lost some of your own personality. A little bit of your own spark. Time to challenge that! The wife has just taken up a new pilates class, so here's your chance to stay home and have some proper 'me' time. Pull on that sensible cardigan, break out the comfy slippers, and treat yourself to some alone time with Donald Fagen. Cup of tea to match, or pint of bitter if you're feeling a bit saucy. Go on, nod along and let that foot tap in time, be a bit extravagant. You still have a fire burning deep within you.

Silly smooth and billowy soft - leans hard into 80s production, pushing the sound as far as possible through perfectionist performance and recording, elaborate harmonies and complicated jazzy composition. My taste was formed valuing raw, direct and aggressive music - so polished convoluted and mellow sounds have been a challenge to learn to love. There's a detached wet irony and indulgent technophilia you have to respect if it ends up sounding like supermarket music.

Es curioso que pese a haber oído dos veces entero el álbum casi no lo recuerde, pero bueno. Entretenido e ya.

Canción destacada: I.G.Y.

A well-played but ultimately pretty uninteresting album to listen to. I wouldn't be bothered by having the album on in the background, but doubt I'll ever come back to it myself.

The kind of background music you'd have on whilst cooking a casserole. It's fine but dated, just like my Le Creuset.

This style of music fascinates me in a way that ancient Egypt fascinated people before the Rosetta stone. Absolutely nothing about this music speaks to me. It's almost in a foreign language, yet it was somehow popular, even played on the radio?! And still is to a section of the population. Pop culture really hit a weird twist with yacht rock. And this album is the yachtiest of yacht rock. I feel like this is music for people who thought Billy Joel was too "ethnic".

I will never understand this and I will judge people who do. Completely fascinating though.

Love the Dan. Love Donald Fagan. Solid album that holds its own against any contemporary Steely Dan. 4/5

2.86

First track is hot garbage but the rest of the album is really good yacht rock/lounge jazz.

Not really my type of music

I keep turning it up and it keeps getting quieter.

Very generic. It sounded like any movie intro/outro.

There's some Steely Dan I dig, but none of it sounds like this. How something can be so competently and articulately arranged and still so insipid is beyond me. I just don't get this type of music, and Fagen is one of the least convincing vocalists I've ever heard.

2/5

I like Steely Dan a lot, and I'm into the whole vibe of this record. But it's a bit too schmoozy in places. Don't get me wrong, it sounds great on a car stereo at night, and the production is fantastic. I see why it's on the list for sure, being a very early digital recording it was significant. But is it Steely Dan good? I don't think so, but maybe it will grow on me more. Not sure of it adds much to the list that the SD albums don't already.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’m going to bump up to a 5 because I just really, really enjoyed this.

I have to be honest to myself with these ratings – I really thought about going for a 4 because “well, some of the outros are a little long, and it’s a little cheesy” but I quickly realized that for my listening experience, I didn’t really care about them in the moment that much. I cared enough to notice them, sure, but they didn’t take away from my overall enjoyment of the album while I was listening to it.

This is just a delight for me – I think I enjoyed it as much as I did because it’s kind of unabashedly cheesy. This is early 80s production at a sort of plateau between the direction of the late 70s and the growing use of synthesizers that would really come to define the mid-80s. This album really tows the line between jazzy soundscapes and some great synth work without overdoing either one. The mixing on this album is as good as audiophiles make it out to be – this is CRISP for 1982, and I guess it’s a testament that the album has never really had to be remastered like that, you know?

Those soundscapes are supplemented really well by his vocals – I know Donald Fagen was one of the members of Steely Dan, but I’ve never heard a Steely Dan album. I have to imagine one will come up, because I want to hear more stuff like this. I think I.G.Y. is a fantastic opener, and a great tonesetter for an album that never really loses steam, save for the occasional long outro, or extended periods where the soundscape doesn’t shift as much as it could.

This isn’t a flawless album, but I don’t think there’s too much I would tweak here. The variety of styles here is super cool, from the moodier & jazzier stuff that comprises the first few tracks, to the arguably city pop-esque “The Goodbye Look,” and the almost Sinatra-esque “Walk Between Raindrops” – slow that track down a bit and you can hear him crooning out those lyrics.

It was just a really fun album for me, I dunno. I could totally see someone getting entirely bored of this and giving it a 2 or a 3, though. It’s gonna be a mixed bag for some people, but it hits on everything I like. Sometimes, when you enjoy an album this much, it’s hard not to go with a 5, and I just feel like I’ve got to give it one. Certainly no less than a 4 for me.

Classic good vibes.

No thanks.

Schum-Schum Musik - eine Mischung aus Nightfever, Michael Jackson, Swing und Jazz Elementen. Es ist eine öde Hintergrundmusik ohne irgendwelche Dynamik oder Wiedererkennungswerte. Aus diesem Grunde bestehen keinerlei Ambitionen diesen Schum-Schum nochmal zu hören.