Customer Reviews

Old Regime

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As with many other compilations of the Dan's early works, the sound quality on Old Regime is questionable. Speaker heads who can tell the difference between grooves and bits with ears and no eyes will not enjoy this. But those of you, like me, who have been fans since you first heard "Do it Again" and "Reelin in the Years" will appreciate this compilation simply for the view it offers into the roots of the Dan. The arrangements aren't quite as slick, but you can see how Becker and Fagen made it from here to "Steely Dan."

I've got a few of the CDs of Becker & Fagen's early demos, and this is the best one. The songs are all up to Dan standards ('Brain Tap Shuffle' and 'Old Regime' are two of my all-time faves), even if the production (what little there is of it) is atrocious and the performances are rather sloppy. Walter does quite a bit of singing on this one (mostly harmonizing with Donald, some of it disturbingly off key), which doesn't happen on any of the later, legitimate Dan albums.

I say 'legitimate' because early demo recordings like this one apparently do not have the official Becker & Fagen seal of approval--the perfectionist songwriters, it seems, are not especially proud of their early work, but for legal reasons (I'm guessing) they can't prevent its being released.

Despite its shortcomings, this disc is worthwhile for its historical value: it provides some insight into the nascent musical vision that reached its fruition in later albums like Pretzel Logic and Aja. Beneath the sonic ugliness, these are some solid, carefully crafted songs in which the Dan's trademark deadpan fusion of black humor and blue-eyed soul is already evident.

If you're going to buy just one of the many CDs full of Dan demo tunes--and there's not much point in buying more than one, since most of them simply have different versions of the same songs shuffled around in different orders--I recommend this one. (But don't buy it until you've collected all of their "real" albums.)