Review Summary: D's my vitamin XYZ
Something strange happened when I listened to
Sunken Condos for the first time in 2012, through the software I had to download in order for the stream to work. At the beginning of every track, the volume level on the software reset itself to a quieter volume. In a way, this didn't surprise me. Since 1980, it's been Donald Fagen's goal to make everything bearing his name as inoffensive as possible, and so I saw this as Fagen's way of trying to make the music inoffensive, so much that it can blend into the background with little effort. Of course, not that this is a particularly bad thing- the Dan's music has always been about being rocking enough not to bore people but smooth enough not to scare people away. And that definitely seems to have made it onto Fagen's fourth overall solo effort
Sunken Condos.
As opposed to the rather dark and depressing nature of albums such as
Kamakiriad and
Morph the Cat, Fagen takes a decidedly brighter and more upbeat direction on
Condos. And as mentioned before, Fagen plays it reasonably safe throughout the whole record. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing depends on the listener. As PopMatters stated in their review, Fagen's contributions to the music world since
Gaucho can be compared to a kid being hired to mow the lawn one day and getting it exactly right, and then having him come back and mow it again the next day, despite the fact that it didn't really need to be mowed again. Of course, this is a valid comparison when you notice that Fagen began working on this album in early 2010, and the album was released in late 2012. That being said, there is one very eyebrow-a raising moment in the whole album: when Fagen decides to cover "Out of the Ghetto" by Isaac Hayes. It's indeed very funny to be hearing Fagen singing lyrics like
"I took you out of the ghetto/But I could not get that ghetto out of you". It's strange, yet it's listenable, and sadly it's the one moment on the album that stands out as Fagen doing anything particularly unique.
Still, there is some stuff here you'll like if you enjoy Fagen's more groove-oriented sound. The opening track, "Slinky Thing", gets everything off to a smooth start with its laid back retro-jazz sound. Fagen's signature snarky humour shows up in the lyrics and the song is full of great keyboard lead hooks that are definitely something you'd expect from him. And despite the decidedly more upbeat overall sound, shades of "The Nightfly" and "Morph the Cat" show up in places on the album, such as "Memorabilia", something that can be seen as a reflection on getting older:
"Have you seen the memorabilia?/The rusty old memorabilia/Souvenirs of perfect doom/In the back of Louis Dakine's back room", and "Weather in My Head", with its quirky comparisons to Al Gore and such. Both tracks are decidedly mid-tempo, bluesy tracks that wouldn't have been too out of place on
Everything Must Go. The album even takes a veer off into disco territory on "I'm Not the Same Without You", a funky tune that definitely seems to be thrown in there to get people dancing, and one thing that can be said is that it is certainly catchy enough.
The main drawback though is that Fagen seems to be running out of ideas, both musically and lyrically. As great as some of the songs here are, the safeness is what really kills them. It's not that playing it safe is the problem, it's that Fagen's recycled lyrical topics can't seem to elevate them. Perhaps the perfect summation of this is the closer, "Planet D'Rhonda". The music is pretty slow and there's some very cringe-worthy lyrics here ("I gotta have CPR", "It was off the hook, crazy sweet", "D's my vitamin XYZ"), and the content itself (being in love with a girl) just seems to lack what has made similarly topical songs by Fagen in the past so great.
In short, it's a Donald Fagen album and that should keep you pleased if that's what you expect. It's not a whole lot different than his past efforts, so if you are fine with getting more of his signature groovy jazz rock, but if you're expecting a total reinvention of himself, you best keep your wallet in your pocket.
