Fagen returns to wrestle with mortality and his own significance on Morph The Cat – his best solo work since Nightfly – and overall a stronger album than Steely Dan's previous effort! We can't pinpoint exactly what makes this one of the better Dan-related efforts off the 00s, but we think it just might be Fagen's tendency to let the tracks on Morph The Cat roll on and groove for a while. (If memory serves, Dan's Everything Must Go was a more tightly punctuated affair.) The keyboards are really rich this time out, propelled by smooth, soulful bass, and the incredibly clean and beautiful sound so necessary to stand behind the man's sardonic, somehow pleasantly caustic wordplay. Tracks include "Morph The Cat", "H Gang", "What I Do", "Brite Nitegown", "The Great Pagoda Of Funn", "Security Joan", "The Night Belongs To Mona", "Mary Shut The Garden Door" and "Morph The Cat (Reprise)". CD

Obscure pre-Steely Dan work from the team of Walter Becker & Donald Fagen – tracks done for the soundtrack to a 1970 film called You Gotta Walk It Like You Talk It, and sounding somewhere between the pair's work on Can't Buy A Thrill, and some of their excellent early demos that have been floating around for years! While the music here is missing some of the polish of the later studio sides by Becker and Fagen, it is a great example of how early their genius emerged – and how even working in an obscure setting like this, they could come up with some really striking tunes! Titles include "You Gotta Walk It Like You Talk It", "Flotsam & Jetsam", "Dog Eat Dog", "Red Giant/White Dwarf", "If It Rains", and "Roll Back The Meaning". LP, Vinyl record album

A bit of jazzy magic from Fagen – stepping out from the cover of Steely Dan after the Gaucho album, and sounding pretty darn great on his own! The record is almost nostalgic, going back to a 50s of Brubeck, abstract expressionism, and pre-Castro Havana – filled with images that are a bit less oblique than those of Fagen's work with Steely Dan, and a love for the subject matter that makes us like the record even more. Musically, the set follows strongly from Gaucho, but has perhaps a bit more straight jazz – and titles include "The Goodbye Look", "Walk Between Raindrops", "IGY", "Green Flower Street", and "New Frontier". LP, Vinyl record album

Obscure pre-Steely Dan work from the team of Walter Becker & Donald Fagen – tracks done for the soundtrack to a 1970 film called You Gotta Walk It Like You Talk It, and sounding somewhere between the pair's work on Can't Buy A Thrill, and some of their excellent early demos that have been floating around for years! While the music here is missing some of the polish of the later studio sides by Becker and Fagen, it is a great example of how early their genius emerged – and how even working in an obscure setting like this, they could come up with some really striking tunes! Titles include "You Gotta Walk It Like You Talk It", "Flotsam & Jetsam", "Dog Eat Dog", "Red Giant/White Dwarf", "If It Rains", and "Roll Back The Meaning". LP, Vinyl record album

A surprisingly nice album from the better half of Steely Dan! This one kind of got cut out immediately when it was issued in 1993, but it's got a heck of a lot of charm – and given the success and style of the re-formed Steely Dan's Two Against Nature, this one sounds pretty great when we look back over our shoulder. And oddly, it's got some nice little modern soul arrangements that struck a strong note with the soul underground – and we can testify to the fact that the record was selling big with the stepper's scene in Chicago, even when it was stiffing in the pop racks elsewhere! Nothing fancy, but there's some nice moments, and with Walter Becker doing the production, it's kind of a Steely Dan album anyway. Titles include "Trans Island Skyway", "Countermoon", "Tomorrow's Girls", "On The Dunes", and "Snowbound". CD

Not the record that introduced the world to the phrase "heavy metal", but instead a much-hyped full length animated feature film – based on the popular sci-fi magazine of the time! The music here has little to do with the story, but there are plenty of great late 70s major label rockers in the lineup – on a set of tracks that includes "I Must Be Dreamin" and "Reach Out" by Cheap Trick, "Heavy Metal" by Sammy Hagar, "Veteran Of The Psychic Wars" by Blue Oyster Cult, "Mob Rules" by Black Sabbath, "True Companion" by Donald Fagen, "Prefabricated" by Trust, "Blue Lamp" by Stevie Nicks, "Crazy" by Nazareth, "Open Arms" by Journey, "Queen Bee" by Grand Funk Railroad, "All Of You" and "Heavy Metal" by Don Felder, "Radar Rider" by Riggs, and "Working In The Coal Mine" by Devo. CD