“When Steely Dan released Two Against Nature on a leap year’s February 29 (2000) … (then their first album in two decades), critics instantly adored it,” (Esquire). “‘What makes [the album] work isn’t its cerebral ellipticity but its stunning musical clarity,’ Rolling Stone wrote in their review at the time. ‘It is a showcase for what Steely Dan’s core twosome can do—reluctant guitar god Becker remains a fluid, precise player, while Fagen covers the keyboard waterfront with a variety of jazz and R&B styles.’ ‘We might just want to jump into the disc and let the duo take us away from all this teen choreography,” Entertainment Weekly mused in their own take. ‘Even if their particular Shangri-la is peopled by perverts, creeps, miscreants, and clavinets.’
The album, dark, strange, and a near 180 musical degrees from plastic pop that was dominating the charts at the time — think Britney Spears, *NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, and Destiny’s Child — cracked the Top 10 on the all-genre Billboard 200 and the Top 20 on the UK counterpart.”
The angular title track is built in either a very big, very subdivided 3/4 or a swiftly-flowing 6/8, relentlessly accented and driven by two handclap-like hits in the last third of each measure of the intro and verse. The percussion smooths out during the chorus, which shifts from Ab up a tritone to E (first heard at 1:24 – 1:40). Both sections keep the color of the keys somewhat fluid, with both major and minor third degrees mixed in. The pattern continues from there, with the exception of a meandering interlude/instrumental bridge from 2:36 – 3:28. Some neat harmonic tricks for sure, but considering the source, they’re more like routine.
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