Music Review: Walter Becker - Circus Money (UK Release)

I’ve never really stopped to think about what our friends across the pond think about our New York-centric Steely duo, but it comes to mind now that I’m checking out the UK release of the new Walter Becker joint, Circus Money, on Sonic 360.  Perhaps they didn’t grow up sneaking their parents’ Steely Dan records like I did, giving them spins in between Iron Maiden and Def Leppard albums, and becoming addicted to the sheer sonic quality and unique songwriting of Becker and Fagen. 

There was always something special to the quality of Steely Dan music; it walked the musical tightrope between jazz and rock, but sneered at you before you were able to lump it into the same pile of other fusion garbage that came from the mid-'70s.  There was some really good stuff that came out of that fusion era and there was a lot of bad… and then there were the innovators like Steely Dan.

With Walter Becker’s new Circus Money album, only his second solo album overall and his first in 14 years, you shouldn’t be surprised to get the kind of high-gloss production that we’ve been used to from the Steely brothers, at least ever since 1980’s Gaucho or perhaps, arguably, Aja (from 1977).  Yes, the production is very sleek and maybe some fans yearn for the grittier (yet still super-smooth) style of the Dan’s first five albums leading up to Aja, but we know better than to expect that from any post-'70s Steely productions.  All that said, Circus Money is certainly up to par with the high level of quality that we’ve always known we could expect in any era of Steely Dan.

Circus Money has a decidedly reggae flavor throughout, a style that we’ve seen crop up on a few Steely tracks over the years. The Royal Scam’s ”Haitian Divorce” comes to mind.  Becker told Rolling Stone he has long been a fan of “Ska, Rock Steady reggae, rockers, steppers, all these different variations on the patterns as the drumming changed a little bit and the tempos changed. A lot of Lee Perry stuff, the stuff that the rhythm section from the Wailers played on — Style Scott, Sly & Robbie, Flabba Holt.”  And Becker’s band pulls off the skanking in a most delicious way. Just listen to the deep-bass dub groove on “Bob Is Not Your Uncle Anymore”, probably the standout track for me.

Article Author: Mike Newman

Mike lives in Brooklyn and is Associate Producer and Writer for Alice Cooper's syndicated classic rock radio show, Nights With Alice Cooper, and has his own radio show on East Village Radio called Beyond Beyond is Beyond. …

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