walter becker - circus money

very good. he lacks Fagen's savoir faire as vocalist, but every song is ace and he rips off a few nice guitar licks. and he sounds sad and thoughtful and still, like, really sick.

wow this is kinda fuckin' good. did not expect this to be better than Morph The Cat.

I was very skeptical when I read about how reggae-heavy this album is, so I put off listening to it for a long time. Nothing against reggae, but I didn't expect Becker to pull it off convincingly. But holy shit, these songs are phenomenal and he nails every stylistic turn with flair

This may be the best Dan solo album. The better songs on 11 Tracks of Whack might be superior to those here, but the sound and playing is obviously a lot more developed. I said elsewhere here that Becker's singing gives an unusual novelty to the work of such a veteran that it wouldn't have even if it had come out as a Dan album with Fagen singing. It's also proved to be his last album and sounds different in that context.
I'd say the best songs are "Paging Audrey" and, for the reggae feel, "Do You Remember the Name".

Yeah I've only listened to it about three times so far, but I could definitely see it eclipsing 11 Tracks of Whack as my favorite, which I already like more than any of Fagen's solo albums. "Downtown Canon" is my fav track currently