Donald Fagen
Morph the Cat

THE REVIEW

CAT IS IN COOL.

"And now what the hell am I supposed to come up with?!" seems to say our Donald Duck on the cover, lost in thought with his hands in his lap, sitting in the study that once belonged to his grandfather.
"Damn it... in 13 years not even one idea... how the hell is it possible, dang it" (everyone knows about the Modenese origins of our guy, whose last name was Faggiano, hence the nickname "Fagèn").
No way, having hit upon the famous "Steely Dan Cool Sound" with his buddy Walter Becker in the late '70s and after the tremendous success of "The Nightfly" in '82 (!!), our man had a small resurgence with "Kamakiriad" in '93, practically ignored by everyone, even by himself (famous was his press conference with a balaclava and his voice disguised with shame) but then... nothing! Apart from a couple of reunions with his old pal under the name Steely Dan (with the usual rehash), he had vanished without a trace.
What the hell could he have done in these 13 years?!? Did he renew his style? Did he squander all the money he accumulated? Did he turn to horse racing? Did he produce new talents? Did he perhaps pull a Paul Simon trick by refreshing old and tired songs with Eno's sound?
NOPE!!!
The gray-haired Faggiano comes out with an album... hear hear... PRACTICALLY identical to the usual stuff!!!
If this isn't genius, then you tell me what it is!!
Listening to this "Morph the Chat" is like replaying "The Nightfly-down," meaning the same album but without the novelty, verve, and originality of back then (damn it, we're talking about almost 25 years ago!!!). Not by chance, "The NightFly" "set the tone" for that horde of lounge-jazz-cool-whatever-style compilations that had so much success in the following years... and oh well... hats off... but what we ask ourselves now is... AND NOW?! HUH?!?! SO WHAT?!?! And most importantly: BUT WHY?!?!
In short: AS IF NOTHING HAS CHANGED.
As if 25 years of musical evolutions didn't mean a damn thing and the world stopped 25 years ago.
As if you were still running around with a Geloso tape player listening to hissing music from old reels or walking around with a punk Mohawk with a nose piercing TODAY that it's been almost twenty years and even my bank manager has a nose piercing! Completely A N A C R O N I S T I C.

Mushy and diffused tracks with the usual sound of Rhodes piano (by now a must, like the track "Morph The Cat") with funky-jazz-rock-fusion rhythm, with the usual little guitars embellishing with the usual jazzy snippets ("H-Gang") and the usual well-harmonized double vocals ("What I do")... in short... everything neatly perfect ... all frighteningly already heard... all predictable and trite worse than a run to the bathroom with colitis: you always know what to expect a minute later!!
By the 4th track, I'd want to quit and smash the stereo but 1) I realize he's not to blame, poor guy, in all this 2) I'm slightly masochistic and missing out on such exquisite bites would be insane!
When it gets to "The Great Pagoda Of Fun" (I swear... it's not my invention: it really is called that!!) I'd want to bite my balls off but I don't even have teeth to cry with (?!).
Nothing...
Trash and predictability to the max... nice sound, for heaven's sake, but the songs are all brutally monothematic and the same as each other with arrangements made with the same rusty cookie cutter my grandmother Anaclea used.
Track 7 is titled "The Night Belongs To Mona" which from the Venetian perspective seems like a good luck wish for fans of the mild "female carpaccio"... nothing doing.
DAMN, I know I'm repeating myself and I don't want to, but it's the same old worn-out, rehashed thing worse than a shaved ice chopped with a TurboGirmi at speed 9.
Can't stand it anymore... I turn the CD to volume 2 and read the latest little book by Paulo Coelho and let the last two tracks do the rest.
And indeed, not even the time to read the 7 words of the title "I'm lying on a lawn floating on the exhalations of my Inner Self" that I fall asleep abruptly on the terrace hammock.
Should anyone talk to me about Dormiben, Sempersonn, or various Chamomiles ... I've found my natural method for sleeping, oh indeed: two or three tracks from this CD, chosen at random and there's a 99% success rate (the 1% are those who actually like this album - and I'm not kidding).
Yeaaaaahwwwl... good'night, folks!
                                  Your Lester.

*)notfortreatmentinunder-30s-followcarefullyinstructionsandthedosagesrecommendedonthepackage-keepawayfromtheearsofloversoforiginalandunpredictablemusicandfromwomeninadvancedpregnancystages.