"Two Against Nature 99

The title track from Two Against
Nature (Giant Records) is presum-
ably about insect extermination.
Here are some lyrics: -"Two
against nature love this gig/Pull up
the weeds before they're too damn
big/Shake the rubbish out on
the patio floor/Soak the
timber with special
spray/Nuke the itty bitty
ones right where they lay."
Assuming Donald Fagen and
Walter Becker of Steely Dan are the
two, is this album a symbolic fight
against rubbish? Could be.
Their first studio album in 20
years picks right up where Steely
Dan left off. It's an original, witty,
devastatingly comic blend of jazz
with a pop appeal that's the group's
signature style.
Fagen and Becker produce the
kind of music that develops with
each listen. You appreciate greater
subtleties and craftsmanship with
each spin of the disc.
Music aside, the duo really can
write lyrics, the kind that sing
with the darkly comic irony of
American failures that movies such
as American Beauty try to commu-
nicate.
To wit, in the aptly named
"What a Shame About Me," a suc-
cessful woman runs into an old
beau in a bookstore. The guy used
to be a promising artist, and he's
now a failure. He tells her, "I'm
still working on the novel/But I'm
just about to quit/Cause I'm wor-
rying about the future now/Or
maybe this is it."

She doesn't seem to mind and
winds up propositioning him. All of
a sudden, Fagen and Becker have
placed her on the same loser plain.
To make the pathetic encounter
complete, he turns her down by say-
ing, "Babe you look
delicious/And you're stand-
ing very close/But, like,
this is Lower Broadway and
you're talking to a ghost."
A pop hook and some highly
original-sounding guitars accompa-
ny all this superbly black irony.
Even darker is the first single off
the album, "Cousin Dupree," a little
ditty about a guy who returns to his
aunt's house at midlife to figure
things out. When his fetching and
much younger cousin catches his
eye, he makes a desperate play. She
rebuffs him. He asks why.
"She said maybe it's the skeevy
look in your eyes/or that your mind
has turned to applesauce/the dreary
architecture of your soul/I said —
but what is it exactly turns you off?"
This backwater flirtation is
accompanied by almost country-
sounding funky jazz that is almost
absurd in light of the lyrics.
The other seven songs on the
album are in a similar vein: dark
comedy accompanied by smooth,
dulcet beats. It's slightly funky,
slightly jazzy, with a little bit of pop.
Despite all their singing of pathetic
midlife failures who didn't make it,
this duo did. And aren't we glad?

Fagen in New York to perform in the
New York Rock and Soul Revue. That
reunion spawned the first Steely Dan
tour since the 1970s, which kicked off
at the Palace of Auburn Hills in 1993.
That year, Fagen released the
Becker-produced album Kamakiriad,
and the next year Becker released his
own recording, 11 Tracks of Whack.
Subsequent reunion tours produced
the live album Alive in America, which
included four songs recorded at Steely
Dan's 1994 Pine Knob show.
In 1996, Steely Dan headed back
into the studio to record its latest
album, Two Against Nature, which was
released earlier this year. Critics have
both panned and hailed the album.
Nick Hornby of The New Yorker
noted that the band's once faux luxe
sound, so hard to come by in the

1970s, can easily be duplicated by any
"boy band."
At the same time, Malcolm Jones of
Rolling Stone recalled that before Fagen
and Becker broke up in1980, "most
every song this band wrote ... was clever,
finely crafted and more than a little sinis-
ter — like icicles dipped in acid." Steely
Dan, he continued, while still producing
dour and moody music, has put out a
noteworthy album. "Full of hummable,
melancholy gems," he wrote, "Two
Against Nature is a fine comeback." ❑

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