![]() The producer was Gary Katz, the album engineer was Roger Nichols and the mixer was Elliot Scheiner all had worked on most of the seven previous Steely Dan albums. The Nightfly was recorded in 1981–82 at Soundworks Digital Audio/Video Recording Studios and Automated Sound in New York City, and at Village Recorders in Los Angeles. To prepare to use the digital technology, the album's engineers took classes at 3M in St. The album was originally slated to be titled Talk Radio. Fagen had hoped to record music on his own "a year or so" prior to the duo's breakup. The fact that it's not a Steely Dan album has freed me from a certain image, a preconceived idea of how it'll sound," he said at the time. He began working towards a solo album shortly thereafter. After their split, Fagen worked on a song for the soundtrack of the film Heavy Metal, which got him back into the studio. "Basically, we decided after writing and playing together for 14 years, we could use a changement d'air as the French say," he told Palmer. Though Fagen imagined they might "stick it out for a while," he admitted to Robert Palmer of The New York Times, in an article published on June 17, 1981, that the group had indeed separated. In addition, Becker was in the midst of a drug problem and went through a withdrawal stage. Both Becker and Fagen would later recall they seemed depressed. Their relationship became strained during the making of 1980's Gaucho, largely due to their insistence for perfection. They gradually shifted from performing live to working solely in the studio, making the project a revolving selection of session musicians at the behest of Fagen and Becker. Over the course of the decade, the group became enormously successful on the strength of the albums Countdown to Ecstasy (1973), Pretzel Logic (1974), Katy Lied (1975), The Royal Scam (1976), and Aja (1977), the band's best-selling effort and a critical favorite. Together, they formed Steely Dan, releasing their first album, Can't Buy a Thrill, in 1972. They later moved to Los Angeles at the suggestion of their friend Gary Katz and took jobs as staff writers for ABC Records. Instead, he was "swept up" into the counterculture at Bard College, where he met Walter Becker. As he got older, he intended to go to graduate school and pursue literature. Fagen, a "lonely" kid, then turned to late-night jazz radio shows for the vitality he felt the new music lacked. As a kid, he enjoyed listening to rock and roll pioneers Chuck Berry and Fats Domino, but personally felt that, as rock music gained popularity, it lost an edge. Toth of The Wall Street Journal in 2008 to dub the album "one of pop music's sneakiest masterpieces." Background ĭonald Fagen, born in Passaic, New Jersey, in 1948, grew up with an affinity for music. The relatively low-key but long-lived popularity of The Nightfly led Robert J. Among critics, The Nightfly gained widespread acclaim and received seven nominations at the 1983 Grammy Awards. It was certified platinum in both the US and UK and generated two popular singles with the top 40 hit " I.G.Y." and the MTV favorite " New Frontier". The Nightfly was well-received, both critically and commercially. The nascent technology, as well as the perfectionist nature of its engineers and musicians, made the album difficult to record. Recorded over eight months at various studios between New York City and Los Angeles, the album is an early example of a fully digital recording in popular music. Many of the songs relate to the cautiously optimistic mood of his suburban childhood in the late 1950s and early 1960s and incorporate such topics as late-night jazz disc jockeys, fallout shelters, and tropical vacations. Unlike most of Fagen's previous work, The Nightfly is almost blatantly autobiographical. 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. ![]() The band separated in 1981, leading Fagen to pursue a solo career. Fagen is best known for his work in the group Steely Dan, with whom he enjoyed a successful career since the 1970s. Produced by Gary Katz, it was released October 1, 1982, by Warner Bros. The Nightfly is the debut solo studio album by American singer-songwriter Donald Fagen.
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