I love this one AND CTE about the same. In fact, I like this a bit more. Strange, huh! I guess my appreciation for the jazz side of rock or jazz music generally along with prog rock and art rock accounts for it.

This is the 'pop'-iest, slickest, most polished Steely Dan effort. It gets almost too polished for even a lot of the fans. Add to that their early experiments with digital recording technology, and the whole album has a very studied and deliberate feeling about it which as a rule puts off rock and jazz heads alike.

But what of the compositions? Well, I'll be damned if they don't mostly rock. My least favourite is in fact the much talked about 'Mark Knopfler' track 'Time out of Mind', which I find rather lightweight and insubstantial next to the rest of the material. I love all of the rest unconditionally and honestly believe the album contains some of the best work of the band.

Babylon Sisters generally gets a good deal of love universally and so does the Third World Man solo but the one I like most is Glamour Profession, a creepy, murky piece of music that looks at the sleazy underbelly of Hollywood. A lot of listeners dislike this very sleazy aspect of the music and find it off putting because it's like nothing else Steely Dan had done up to the point and lacks rock and roll oomph. But the music is perfect for the subject matter and works superbly in conjunction with the lyrics. A more straight ahead rocker would probably be more appealing to listen to but I wonder if, at least within the boundaries of Steely Dan's style, it would capture the mood as well as Glamour Profession?

That applies to the album as such. The material oozes with murky cynicism and the music echoes it brilliantly. Songs like Hey Nineteen sound as if they lack the usual Dan hooks until you examine it from this perspective and find that it's quite intentionally designed to throw you off because it reflects the confusion and disillusionment in the lyrics and quite possibly in the lives of the songwriting duo too. To that end, the overproduced feeling too is apt because that is exactly what it is supposed to capture. Too much gloss and lavishness leaving the recipient with an empty feeling.

I'd have to dock it half a star for Time Out of Mind which is not quite good enough to warrant a masterpiece rating for the whole album but as such, this is one of the worthiest albums made by this great band.

This is an album quite unlike any other in the Steely Dan catalogue. The band note wittily in the liner notes to the remaster that their label probably thought some German art music album had been thrust on them when they heard it.

Indeed, it sounds a lot more like the art rock of the time than any of their other albums. Listen to the keyboards just after the guitar solo on Boddhisatva or on King of the World....it's a far cry from their generally careful adherence to what was acceptable sonically as per the mainstream norm.

Through their career, Steely Dan have mastered the art of experimenting audaciously within the narrow confines of mainstream rock and pop music (a song like Night by night is a prime example of this). But on this album, they actually do sound 'different' or 'weird' even to an inattentive pair of ears. If you think stuff like Quadrophenia is pushing off and would really get off with Fragile or Brain Salad Surgery, you will probably feel annoyed and irritated by parts of this album. But if you love that kind of stuff, chances are this turns out to be one of your favourite Steely Dan albums.

I largely agree with Sean Trane's assessment in the matter. The best Steely Dan lead guitar is concentrated on Royal Scam and Aja and Gaucho is chock full of lovely chord progressions so in that respect, Countdown to Ecstasy loses out in comparison because it rarely approaches THAT quality. However, it is a very solid effort with some of their best songs like My Old School or Boston Rag.

The time it took Stevie Wonder to release Time to Love after Conversations Peace was reminiscent of Chinese Democracy. Thankfully, it was worth the wait - somewhat. I was fortunate to get into Stevie Wonder's music after the event but the wait must have been painful for his longtime fans and it probably was not good enough to justify the wait in their eyes. Nothing save another Talking Book or Innervisions would have been.

But at several moments in the album, Stevie Wonder recalls that glorious phase of his career. In retrospect, the midas touch never completely deserted him. At heart, songs like Never in Your Sun were not so far removed from quintessential Wonder but his attempt to blend it with 80s sonic values was not particularly successful, to put it politely.

He doesn't seem to be trying nearly so hard to fit in anymore because he's a has-been making albums for his pleasure and no more the superstar trying to match past commercial success. The flow is thus more natural and uninhibited and that already makes listening to the album an easier process compared to In Square Circle.

The shift of mainstream music culture towards hip hop also seems to have played into his hands because it favours his playful use of syncopation and his penchant for laying one after another irresistible groove.

Another enduring gift of his has become more valued in the contemporary pop climate - of writing great melodies. The man just never seems to run out of good tunes. Or is it that his singing always makes them regardless? For his voice too is evergreen and not much changed after all these years. And, refreshingly, he doesn't appear to feel obliged to play 'old man'. He's just the same, good ol' Stevie Wonder - disarming, charming and very, very entertaining.

An area of weakness, strangely, is in the ballads. Especially the jazz-crooning affairs like How Will I Know or True Love. It's not that they are bad, they are actually pretty good in their own right, well put together and well sung. It's just that Wonder has written such fantastic ballads over the years that the bar has been set too high and what he has on offer here struggles to distinguish itself in such elite company. Moon Blue, simply for how luxuriant it is, makes a mark. You'll enjoy the rest while they last but may not find yourself humming them over and over like a Too Shy to Say or Too Late. A particularly great singing performance lifts Shelter in the Rain above the other ballads.

The more uptempo cuts fare better, thanks to the playful syncopation and catchy grooves alluded to earlier. Some great basslines too, especially on My Love Is On Fire, a cut that would storm into his 70s masterpieces. It is very charming to hear him play the good old harmonica on Sweetest Somebody I Know. As if nothing's changed about the world in all these years, even as the production values make it clear that we are in the noughties now (speaking of which, the production is very good, polished and clear but warm and organic.

Rather than being turn offs, his copious moments of sentimentality and silliness are endearing because they represent the gaze of a man who looks at the world very differently, literally, from the rest of us and is effortlessly emotional in a way that mainstream artists struggle to capture of late. They say a thing of beauty is forever and that seems to hold true for Wonder, at least whenever he's on.

This is not a consistent album and there are some less than stellar cuts like, unfortunately, the overlong title track. But he's on much more of the time than he's been in a long time. By the exacting standards of his best output, it is difficult to give this any more than 3.5 stars but make no mistake, this is the best Wonder album to come out in a very long time. If you are a fan, get it. I was fortunate to pick it as a free disc with other purchases (!) and I doubt I will get similar bang for the buck any time soon from other purchases.