This came out in 2000 — or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
If you’re trying to remember how long it’s been since the last Steely Dan album, put it this way — when Gaucho came out in 1980, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera weren’t even born.
Now that you feel old, here’s the good news: You’d never know a moment had passed by their long-awaited ninth studio release Two Against Nature. From the cucumber-cool studio-musician performances to the turtleneck-sweater light-jazz grooves, from the twisted humour (Gaslighting Abbie) to the cryptic, subversive lyrics about lust and incest (“We just to play when we were three / How about a kiss for your cousin Dupree?”), from Donald Fagen’s blue-eyed soul vocals and electric piano to Walter Becker’s ice-pick guitar, Two Against Nature is a slice of freeze-dried ’70s pop unfettered by drum machines, James Brown samples or electronica loops. You might say they don’t make ’em like that anymore. Well, they do — but only about every 20 years or so.
