Donald Fagen - The Nightfly (180g) (LP)

Released in 1982, this was Donald Fagen's first album project post-Steely Dan. Marking a considerable departure from his earlier work, The Nightfly eschewed that outfit's ironic distance in favor of autobiographical intimacy. The album, one of the best-produced ever, was recorded with the painstaking attention to detail that was such a part of Steely Dan. In fact, Fagen used the same top session players.

Produced by Gary Katz (Can't Buy A Thrill, Gaucho) and engineered by Roger Nichols (Steely Dan, John Denver, Beach Boys and many more), many of the musicians on The Nightfly had also played on previous Steely Dan records, including Jeff Porcaro, Rick Derringer and Larry Carlton. Similar to the Aja and Gaucho albums, a large number of studio musicians were employed, crediting 31 musicians as having played on the record.

This classic album received several Grammy nominations and produced two hit songs, "I.G.Y." and "New Frontier".

Continuing in the smooth pop-jazz mode favored on the final Steely Dan records, The Nightfly is lush and shimmering, produced with cinematic flair by Gary Katz; romanticized but never sentimental, the songs are slices of suburbanite soap opera, tales of space-age hopes (the hit 'I.G.Y.') and Cold War fears (the wonderful 'The New Frontier,' a memoir of fallout-shelter love) crafted with impeccable style and sophistication.