Steely Dan: Countdown To Ecstasy

When Steely Dan vocalist Donald Fagen released his second solo album, Kamakiriad, in 1993, fans marvelled at the inordinate length of time it had taken him to come up with a follow-up to the much-loved The Nightfly. For a business in which a week is not just, to use that dullest of political claims, "a long time", but long enough for musical fads to swing into fashion and right back out again, 11 years was a simply inconceivable gap to leave in a pop career.