Everything Must Go (Steely Dan album)

Last updated
Everything Must Go
Steelydan-everythingmustgo.jpg
Studio album by
ReleasedJune 10, 2003
Recorded2001–2003
Studio
  • Sear Sound, New York City
  • Skyline, New York City
  • River Sound, New York City
  • Hyperbolic Sound, Maui
  • Bearsville, Woodstock, New York
  • mixed at Presence Studios, Weston, Connecticut [1]
  • mastered at Sony Music [2]
Genre Jazz rock
Length42:24
Label Reprise
Producer Walter Becker, Donald Fagen
Steely Dan chronology
Plush TV Jazz-Rock Party
(2000)
Everything Must Go
(2003)
Singles from Everything Must Go
  1. "Blues Beach [3] "
    Released: May 6, 2003

Everything Must Go is the ninth studio album by American rock group Steely Dan. It was released on June 10, 2003, by Reprise Records, and was the band's second album following their 20-year studio hiatus spanning 1980 through 2000, when they released Two Against Nature . Everything Must Go is the band's most recent studio album and their last with founding member Walter Becker before his death in 2017.

Contents

Background

"Godwhacker" developed from a lyric Fagen wrote a few days after his mother died of Alzheimer's. "It's about an elite squad of assassins whose sole assignment is to find a way into heaven and take out God", he later explained. "If the deity actually existed, what sane person wouldn't consider this to be justifiable homicide?" [4]

Reception

Critical

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic 71/100 [5]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg [6]
Blender Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [7]
Entertainment Weekly B+ [8]
The Guardian Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg [9]
Los Angeles Times Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [10]
Mojo Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [11]
Q Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg [12]
Rolling Stone Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg [13]
Uncut Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [14]
USA Today Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [15]

Upon its release, Everything Must Go received generally favorable reviews from music critics. [5] During a concert at Los Angeles' Greek Theatre on July 8, 2011, Donald Fagen said that he felt the album was "underrated". [16]

Commercial

Everything Must Go is the only Steely Dan album not to achieve a Gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America. [17]

Legacy

The album is frequently placed last on ranked lists of Steely Dan's albums, with Stereogum music writer Zach Schonfeld writing in 2020 that the album "seems to exist largely to make it easy for fans to identify the bottom rung in their Steely Dan album ranking". [18] Writers for Stereogum, Classic Rock , and Louder each placed the album in ninth place (last place) when ranking Steely Dan's discography from worst to best. [19] [20] [17]

Releases

Everything Must Go was also released as a DVD-audio disc with a multi-channel mix. [21] And now an SACD newly remastered from the original analog tape by Bernie Grundman direct to DSD. A special two-disc edition of Everything Must Go (one CD, one DVD) was released. The DVD, 'Steely Dan Confessions', follows Becker and Fagen touring Las Vegas after hours in a taxi promoting the album in a special version of the cult HBO cable show Taxicab Confessions , hosted by cabbie Rita. [22] [23]

Track listing

All songs written by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen.

Everything Must Go track listing
No.TitleLength
1."The Last Mall"3:36
2."Things I Miss the Most"3:59
3."Blues Beach"4:29
4."Godwhacker"4:57
5."Slang of Ages"4:15
6."Green Book"5:55
7."Pixeleen"4:01
8."Lunch with Gina"4:27
9."Everything Must Go"6:45

Personnel

Steely Dan

Additional musicians

Production

Charts

Chart performance for Everything Must Go
Chart (2003)Peak
position
Australian Albums (ARIA) [24] 68
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders) [25] 26
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia) [26] 44
Danish Albums (Hitlisten) [27] 23
Dutch Albums (Album Top 100) [28] 25
Finnish Albums (Suomen virallinen lista) [29] 31
French Albums (SNEP) [30] 132
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100) [31] 29
Irish Albums (IRMA) [32] 33
Italian Albums (FIMI) [33] 33
New Zealand Albums (RMNZ) [34] 40
Norwegian Albums (VG-lista) [35] 5
Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan) [36] 11
UK Albums (OCC) [37] 21
US Billboard 200 [38] 9

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steely Dan</span> American rock band

Steely Dan is an American rock band founded in 1971 in New York by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. Initially the band had a stable lineup but in 1974 Becker and Fagen retired from live performances to become a studio-only band, opting to record with a revolving cast of session musicians. Rolling Stone has called them "the perfect musical antiheroes for the seventies".

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Donald Jay Fagen is an American musician who was the co-founder, lead singer, co-songwriter, and keyboardist of the band Steely Dan, formed in the early 1970s with musical partner Walter Becker. In addition to his work with Steely Dan, Fagen has released four solo albums, beginning with The Nightfly in 1982, which was nominated for seven Grammys.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walter Becker</span> American musician, songwriter, and record producer

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<i>Countdown to Ecstasy</i> 1973 studio album by Steely Dan

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<i>The Royal Scam</i> 1976 studio album by Steely Dan

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<i>Two Against Nature</i> 2000 studio album by Steely Dan

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<i>Alive in America</i> 1995 live album by Steely Dan

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<i>The Nightfly</i> 1982 studio album by Donald Fagen

The Nightfly is the debut solo studio album by American singer-songwriter Donald Fagen. Produced by Gary Katz, it was released October 1, 1982, by Warner Bros. Records. Fagen is best known for his work in the group Steely Dan, with whom he enjoyed a successful career since the 1970s. The band separated in 1981, leading Fagen to pursue a solo career. Although The Nightfly includes a number of production staff and musicians who had played on Steely Dan records, it was Fagen's first release without longtime collaborator Walter Becker.

<i>Kamakiriad</i> 1993 studio album by Donald Fagen

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References

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