At the same time we were very depressed, and I think you can hear it in some of the tunes…. We were trying to realize a technical perfection that started to deaden the material.
I think on Gaucho we finally went overboard on that…. Not only surpass it, but do something completely different. “We were both locked into the idea that you have to surpass what you just did or else it’s no good,” Fagen told the Los Angeles Times in 1991: While Becker’s personal issues contributed to the open-ended hiatus, the tedious process of attempting to make Gaucho a worthy follow-up to 1977’s smash, Aja, also seemed to represent the apotheosis of the band’s studio perfectionism. Given The Nightfly’s unquestioned status as one of the pivotal audiophile releases of all time, it should come as no surprise that it’s the subject of this edition of “ The Best Version Of…“įollowing the release of 1980’s Gaucho, the Steely Dan duo of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker decided to make an amicable split. This past November, KEF produced its own list of the “Top 24 Best Sounding Pop Albums of All Time.” The Nightfly came in seventh. In 1997, cognitive psychologist, producer, and writer Daniel Levitin included The Nightfly in his list of “high-fidelity masterpieces.” Likewise, when the BBC asked Sound on Sound’s editor-in-chief Paul White in 2006 what the best recording ever was, he replied “that’s so hard,” then landed on The Nightfly. The Nightfly still prompts extensive discussion on the audio-related interwebs, and it regularly turns up as audition material in gear reviews in the pages of Stereophile (and Audiophile Style). Its status has scarcely diminished in the intervening four decades. Sony was so impressed with The Nightfly’s sound quality that it asked for permission to make it one of the first albums released on CD so that it could be used to demonstrate the then-new format at audio trade shows.
Upon its release, The Nightfly instantly garnered a reputation as an audiophile album par excellence, becoming “a popular demonstration record in hi-fi stores across the globe,” as Sound on Sound’s Paul Tingen put it. One of the first digitally recorded albums, The Nightfly’s sound was crafted by the all-star team of producer Gary Katz and engineers Roger Nichols and Elliot Scheiner, and it was mastered by the equally legendary Robert Ludwig. While at first blush it might seem quixotic to rank the former Steely Dan frontman’s solo debut - which, despite its critical plaudits and whopping seven Grammy nominations, took almost 20 years to go platinum - alongside some of the best-selling albums ever released, EQ’s readers were in good company: Famed musician, producer, and EQ columnist Al Kooper also placed The Nightfly fifth on his exhaustive 100-album list. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Dark Side of the Moon, Pet Sounds, and Abbey Road, but ahead of Led Zeppelin IV, Electric Ladyland, and Thriller. When EQ Magazine asked its readers to select “the best sounding recordings of all time,” Donald Fagen’s 1982 album, The Nightfly, ranked fifth - behind Sgt.