Everything Must Go

It was an unexpected triumph and demonstrated that Becker and Fagan had lost none of their musical touch.

Their final studio album, 2003's Everything Must Go, continued their mature, jazz-oriented style.

Sadly, 67-year-old Walter Becker died in 2017.

His passing marked the end of one of rock's greatest songwriting partnerships.

And also a couple of Becker solo albums as well, interestingly enough.

But when Dan reformed with Two Against Nature and then what turned out to be their final album, Everything Must Go, those two albums...

in my head, feel closer to sort of extensions of The Nightfly than they do extensions of Gaucho.

So weirdly, the sort of solo Fagin, or this album, is a sort of stepping stone to Steely Dan's Return, with two albums which are both very good, there's no doubt about it.

... is the, the superior of the two.

Everything Must Go, uh, Everything Must Go sounds fine, like, uh, but, uh, they're missing the hooks.

Like, they're missing the, the interesting bits and pieces that really made some of those songs work so well.

Those are really missing on Everything Must Go.

Although we do hear, uh, Becker sing his first lead on a song, one called, uh, Slang of Ages.

And I will say even though I, I know I've heard him sing, right, backing vocals and what, that's not what I expected Becker's lead vocal performance to sound like.

Eli, any thoughts on these last two records before we wrap it up?

I like, I really like Gaslighting Abby, which is the first track off Two Against Nature.