Of course, the new Steely Dan album sounds great. Try downloading this sucker, the grizzled grouches mutter. We dare you. Even a deaf dolt like you, Mr. 80GB Information Thief, can discern how much textured dimensionality the conjoined soul thrushes and tasty licks that trick up "Godwhacker" lose in MP3 form. If the world is headed for a fall, as is foreseen here from "The Last Mall" to "Everything Must Go," it might as well go down in the most luscious live-tracked stereo civilization has ever achieved.

But though it's tempting to read apocalyptic premonitions into Donald Fagen and Walter Becker's suave pessimism, this is the same worldview they've purveyed since 1972's "Do It Again." The main difference is thesci-fi that came on board as of Fagen's 1993 Kamakiriad. And as with their Grammy-winning comeback, Two Against Nature, sexual contretemps dominate. Some tread old ground: "Things I Miss the Most" catalogs the ruins of a divorce ("The talk/The sex/Somebody to trust," and then immediately, "The Audi TT/The house on the Vineyard/The house on theGulf Coast"), and "Lunch With Gina" examines another of the obsessive relationships that pervaded Two Against Nature. But the sour "Blues Beach," the "cyberqueen" fantasy "Pixeleen," the sex grid of "Green Book" and the Becker come-on "Slang of Ages" all sample dystopian futurism.

As premonitions go, Everything Must Go is well-turned but overfamiliar. So as with Aja — the duo's biggest and very nearly emptiest record — its value ultimately reduces to textured dimensionality and tasty licks. Me, I can name many saxophonists I'd rather hear 100 seconds of than Walt Weiskopf, who plays the inflated intro to the climactic title tune.

“Oh Sherrie”

Steve Perry's girlfriend Sherrie Swafford was actually in the studio when Perry began writing this song--his lone Top Ten hit as a solo act--with two co-writers. The trio began at midnight one night with just "Oh, Sherrie!" and "hold on, hold on." Three hours later, they had a complete song. Swafford, however, had to wait until the next day to hear it. "Sherrie actually got tired and went to bed," Perry said. She also appeared in the video, but their relationship did not hold on for long.