Kamakiriad

Donald Fagen | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 25, 1993)
• Original Release Date: May 25, 1993
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Reprise / Wea
• ASIN: B000002MIY
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  DVD Audio  |  MiniDisc  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (70 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,193 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Any major dude will tell you that this immaculate jazz-pop collection sounds like it could have been recorded mere months, not 11 years, after The Nightfly. A Steely Dan LP in all but name, Fagen and Walter Becker offer killer horn charts, lite-funk grooves, airy guitar riffs and hipster sci-fi lyrics. --Jeff Bateman

Product Description

Japanese only SHM pressing. The SHM-CD [Super High Material CD] format features enhanced audio quality through the use of a special polycarbonate plastic. Using a process developed by JVC and Universal Music Japan discovered through the joint companies' research into LCD display manufacturing SHM-CDs feature improved transparency on the data side of the disc allowing for more accurate reading of CD data by the CD player laser head. SHM-CD format CDs are fully compatible with standard CD players. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fagen's Cool Concept Album, July 24, 2002

By 

Alan Caylow (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kamakiriad (Audio CD)

Donald Fagen's 2nd solo album, 1993's "Kamakiriad," came darn close to being released as a Steely Dan album---Fagen's old Dan co-hort, Walter Becker, produced the album, plays guitar on it, and co-wrote the song "Snowbound," t'boot. But since Fagen practically wrote everything else for the album on his own, "Kamakiriad" was ultimately released as a Donald Fagen solo album (and the official return of Steely Dan would have to wait until 2000's "Two Against Nature"). But no matter---this "almost Steely Dan" album is simply terrific, filled with all of the high trademark qualities you'd expect in the music of a Dan man. It's a cool mixture of cocktail jazz/pop, featuring Fagen's hip vocals, cookin' guitars, fat drums, smooth keyboards, happenin' horns, and, for the cherry on top, great sound & production that's very crisp. Not only that, but "Kamakiriad" is a cool *concept* album, telling the story of an Everyman living sometime in the future, who takes off for a spin in his technological wonder car of the 21st century, the Kamakiri, and has several adventures along the way. Being a single album rather than a double, the storyline for "Kamakiriad" may be a lot thinner than, say, The Who's "Tommy" or Pink Floyd's "The Wall," but I don't think Fagen was trying to compete with these double-album rock epics, and the story he tells here is nice & simple, to the point, and a lot of fun, just like the songs themselves.So, hop in the car, hit the "Trans-Island Skyway," admire the "Countermoon," take your pick of "Tomorrow's Girls," chill out "On The Dunes," and head out to that "Teahouse On The Tracks." Donald Fagen's "Kamakiriad" is a wonderful ride. :-)

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ride the Science Fiction Jazz Mobile, March 4, 2004

By 

Tim Brough "author and music buff" (Springfield, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Kamakiriad (Audio CD)

A Steely Dan record in all but name (would it have heaped Grammys had it been under the brand label?), Donald Fagen's second solo album had high art written all over it when it first came out in 1993. It cruises along with a strange detactched swing, set to some futuristic be-bop that only the coolest of futures could allow for. Millions of miles and a couple millennia away from the nostalgia of "The Nightfly," Fagen steered his imagination into a vision of the (then) coming turn of the century, where an environmentally perfect steam driven vehicle could both transport you and grow you a salad. If you think that sounds bizarre, the truly weird thing is that the music is so slick and cool. In 1993, this was about as far off the mainstream as you could get.

Of course, "Kamakiriad" was roundly ignored. Too highbrow for ear candy aficionados, too slick for the exploding grunge scene, and lacking the marquee value of being a Steely Dan record, Fagen's ode to the "Wonderful World" of "IGY" just couldn't find an audience that was swallowing Jell-O shots of Michael Bolton or huffing up the heady magical odorous sulfur residue of "Smells Like Teen Spirit." But ya know something? Having just purchased "Kamakiriad" on DVD-Audio, it probably has a sturdier framework than most of what topped the charts that year. It most certainly has grown on me over the time since I originally picked up my CD copy ten plus years ago.

"Tomorrow's Girls," the first single, is what "Peg" or "Hey 19" might have been, if the women in those songs were androids. Like a b-movie from the Roger Corman drive-in flicks of Fagen's youth, these spaced invaders landed on the Jersey Beaches like some freak form of "The War Of The Worlds." Except they have a fat juicy bass pulsing under "a virus wearing pumps and pearls." Great stuff, worthy of any of the best twists in the Steely Dan's often contorted story telling. (Almost as good is the despairing end of the road to Fagen's travelogue, "On The Dunes.")

Aside from that particular moment, "Kamakiriad" is a relatively sedate affair. It's a close parallel to the reunited Becker and Fagen's "Everything Must Go," in that everything is recorded in as lush an environment as possible. This is the kind of music that makes home demonstrations of your DVD-Audio and 5.1 surround systems fun. There's no way that you can MP3 this and get that environment filling quality that is so lacking in a lot of today's recordings. And on top of that, "Kamakiriad" actually holds its own as a listenable collection of songs! Who could ask for more? (Well, if you don't already have "The Nightfly.....")

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kilgore Trout meets Steely Dan! A masterwork, September 8, 1998

By 

rash67 (USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Kamakiriad (Audio CD)

"Kamakiri", I have been told, means "Beatle" in Japanese. The "-ad" suffix as in Odyssiad, so it's journey of the beatle. The car is "not a freeway bullet or a bug with monster wheels, just a total bio-sphere." The logical extension of "Aja", "Gaucho" and other late Steely Dan. Exquisitely well thought out, cerebral, yet funky. The story of the journey of an improbable solar powered car with a vegetable garden inside! Full of clever Fagan lyrics. Rock, jazz, R&B, New age influences, impossible to classify.

A great stereo test record, spectacular recording quality!

Standout song is "Tomorrows Girls", a cautionary tale diseased about beautiful Party Girls from outer space who come to earth for a good time with Earth Guys. "A virus wearing pumps and pearls".

Listen for the fireworks when "some loser fires off a flare". Kamakiriad is chock full of lyrical, tongue-in-cheek songs, not a bad cut on the album.

Gentle non-abrasive music. A masterwork! The only thing wrong with this album is the length of time it took Donald Fagen to do it. Let's hope he does another album soon!

Kilgore Trout meets Steely Dan!