Steely Dan - Gaucho - UHQR 2 x 45rpm 200g Vinyl LP Box Set

2024

Definitive reissue Ultra High Quality Record, the pinnacle of high-quality vinyl.

Mastered by Bernie Grundman from an analog tape copy originally EQ'd by Bob Ludwig

Pressed at Quality Record Pressings using 200-gram Clarity Vinyl®

Tip-on old style gatefold double pocket jackets with film lamination by Stoughton Printing

Michael Fremer Rated 10/10 Music, 11/10 Sound.

Gaucho — the iconic seventh studio album by Steely Dan, released in November 1980 — and Grammy-winner for Best Engineered Non-Classical Recording, was also Grammy-nominated for Album of the Year and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. The album represents the band's musical evolution towards a more polished and sleek sound, featuring a collection of meticulously crafted songs that blend jazz, rock, and pop music, while exploring themes of decadence, longing, and disillusionment.

Gaucho's title track is a jazzy instrumental piece. The standout tracks on the album include "Hey Nineteen," a catchy and upbeat tune that features a memorable saxophone riff and lyrics about an older man's attraction to a young woman, and "Babylon Sisters," a funky and groovy track that showcases the band's impeccable sense of rhythm and melody.

The sessions for Gaucho represented the band's typical penchant for studio perfectionism and obsessive recording technique. To record the album, the band used at least 42 different musicians, spent more than a year in the studio, and far exceeded the original monetary advance given by the record label. Still, the album features multiple layers of instrumentation, carefully crafted arrangements, and the use of top-notch session musicians to create a lush and sophisticated sound that is uniquely Steely Dan.

Despite its critical and commercial success, Gaucho was a challenging album to make. During the two-year span in which the album was recorded, the band was plagued by a number of creative, personal and professional problems. MCA, Warner Bros. and Steely Dan had a three-way legal battle over the rights to release the album. After it was released, jazz musician Keith Jarrett was given a co-writing credit on the title track after threatening legal action over plagiarism of Jarrett's song "'Long As You Know You're Living Yours."

Gaucho marked a significant stylistic change for the band, introducing a more minimal, groove- and atmosphere-based format. The harmonically complex chord changes that were a distinctive mark of earlier Steely Dan songs are less prominent on Gaucho, with the record's songs tending to revolve around a single rhythm or mood, although complex chord progressions were still present particularly in "Babylon Sisters" and "Glamour Profession." Gaucho proved to be Steely Dan's final studio album that Donald Fagen and Walter Becker would make together until the year 2000.

Gaucho reached No. 9 on the U.S. album chart and was certified platinum-selling. "Hey Nineteen" reached No. 10 on the U.S. Singles Chart and went to No. 1 in Canada. Pitchfork, in its review, describes the almost "pathologically overdetermined production" as elegant, arid and a little forbidding. "Every last tinkling chime sounds like it took 12 days to mix, because chances are, it did." The New York Times deemed Gaucho the best album of 1980, beating out Talking Heads' Remain in Light and Joy Division's Closer.

"It's the fifth entry in AP's Steely Dan reissue series, and, in its own way, it's also a clear-cut litmus-test entry of the lot. ... Every side of the Gaucho UHQR exhibited no inner-groove distortion, and there were no pops and/or clicks either. Each of my two clarity vinyl Gaucho LPs, all sides of which were adorned with the proper, of-era MCA rainbow label design, color scheme, and lowercase side designations, were flat, well-centered, and quiet — oh so quiet! The compression and EQ native to the original have not been altered. Instead, how shall I put it — the flawed soul of Gaucho is now more clear, more pure, more there. ... What the UHQR processes and ensuing end product have done instead is they've brought the excellently engineered and mastered Gaucho LP to a cleaner, quieter state of playback. ... The UHQR edition of Steely Dan's Gaucho is the best this album has ever sounded on vinyl, full stop. Yes, the original 1980 MCA LP rightfully earned its engineering Grammy, but this new 2LP 45rpm edition lets the music truly reflect the clean soul that was always inherent in its grooves on totally quiet clarity vinyl. It's finally re-engaged me with an album I had long preferred listening to digitally over the balance of the past 20-odd years." —  Music = 8/11; Sound = 11/11 — Mike Mettler, AnalogPlanet.com To read the full review click here.