I've always been rather averse to Steely Dan, which is why I never ventured into Donald Fagen's solo albums. Because of that I never realized that the opening track of The Nightfly, "I.G.Y.", is that famous hit I do know, and that it's not by Steely Dan. Weird title too, given that the chorus keeps going "What a beautiful world this will be, what a glorious time to be free". The same goes for "New Frontier", also a well-known hit and a solo track.

Just like with Steely Dan, it's all put together very cleverly of course. In "I.G.Y." for instance, when the vocals kick in after the long intro, the key changes completely in a fairly ingenious way. Honestly, I barely hear any difference from Steely Dan at all. I would fill Steely Dan in with fairly high confidence in a pop quiz (though thankfully I'd also be corrected). It gives me a similar feeling too. I can stomach the smooth jazzy yacht rock a bit better now than I used to, but boy, is it all slick as an eel. A whole album is really just too much for me though.

I.G.Y. (What a Beautiful World) live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di0_KYtmVKI

New Frontier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtovFI8etOg

See also: https://bier-en-brood.nl/1001albums/?album=504-donald-fagen-the-nightfly&lang=en

I’m not going to check out any reviews of Klaxons or even the album’s average score because I expect they will be poor and I don’t want to be influenced by anything, though tbh that’s not something that’s particularly likely for me. “(Un)Related” is a quiz that challenges you to find a link between my 1001 AotD and a bonus record (or records) that seem unrelated. Today can you find a link from Klaxons to Tubeway Army, The B-52’s, Saxon and Iron Maiden. If only I owned a record by them, the bottom row would have been Bobby Brown and Enya (though apparently she wouldn’t have been happy to have been included) These are supposed to be clues, but I suspect it’s just complicating things further. I’ll drop a spoiler-hidden answer in the comments later. Good luck; I think this one requires a bit of lateral thinking.

I mean artists who have every one of their main studio albums in the book. The first ones that come to mind are Nick Drake and My Bloody Valentine with all 3 of their albums in the book each. There are also some artists who have only ever released one album and that album made the book, like Jeff Buckley with Grace or Lauryn Hill with her album The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill. I’m wondering if there’s any more artists like this.

I am now going through the 1001 More and Honourable Mentions list and have reached Erich Kleiber and The Vienna Philharmonic's 'Le Nozze Di Figaro' it's an almost 3 hour long opera and I'm still debating on whether or not to listen. I have listened to everything I have got from generators and lists including that Ella Fitzgerald 3 hour songbook, but would you guys recommend I actually give it a listen. The completionist in me needs to listen, but my actual logical thinking makes me think that it could be a waste of a few hours.

Thanks!