Critical
Upon its release, Everything Must Go received generally favorable reviews from music critics. [2]
In The Guardian , Richard Williams gave the album 3/5 stars, writing: "Unique among contemporary musicians, the post-comeback Steely Dan make records that are more fun to read than to listen to. ... But in all other respects, this new set of songs fails to live up to such assured invention. Thirty years on from their debut, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker have reduced the musical content of their compositions to a series of beautifully machined gestures, virtually devoid of the bright hooks and bold flourishes that gave them such a vital role in the wasteland of the 1970s, and sent fans skipping down the street humming snatches of "Barrytown" or "Deacon Blues". Time spent with the lyric sheet of Everything Must Go will not be wasted, but only the hard-bop horns on "Things I Miss the Most", the slick guitar lick of "Godwhacker" and the laconic strut of "Pixeleen" rise above the mood of well-heeled world-weariness." [13]
For BBC Music, Chris Jones wrote: "Interviews had hinted that the boys had settled on a looser, more blues-based vibe and, sure enough, what we get this time around is a collection of grooves. This works for and against them. Drummer Keith Carlock is so deep in the pocket that he's in danger of being mistaken for spare change. A few nifty time changes really wouldn't go amiss and the relentless search for the funky backbeat often precludes the actual resolution of a hummable tune. Having said all this, there are at least three future classics here and it's still head and shoulders above what most contemporaries are achieving." [14]
In New York , Ethan Brown wrote: "The greatness of Steely Dan lies in their pranks and grooves. ... But Steely Dan’s new album fails at what the band does best. The jokes are oddly, inexplicably stale (on "Green Book," a cashier is described as resembling Jill St. John), and the music is too often a bland boogie. Fagen and Becker have always flirted with fusiony tropes (long, woozy bridges, soft jazz horns), but here the style simply feels affectless. A couple of songs – "The Last Mall," with its refrain of "Last call / to do my shopping / at the last mall," in particular – come close to capturing Steely Dan’s acid wit. But Fagen and Becker don’t take the gags far enough; they’re only half-funny. For a band once so flawless in its sense of humor and its pranks – they offered Rock and Roll Hall of Fame voters Fagen’s childhood piano and a case of honey mustard as an incentive to induct them – Everything Must Go is a profound disappointment. It’s like a Christopher Guest film without the laughs." [15]
During a concert at Los Angeles' Greek Theatre on July 8, 2011, Donald Fagen said that he felt the album was "underrated". [16]
