Consumer Guide Album

Donald Fagen: Sunken Condos [Reprise, 2012]
How can you not dig an ED-defying lounge lizard whose April-November romance evolves as far as "Today we were strollin'/By the reptile cage/I'm thinkin': Does she need somebody/Who's closer to her own age"? Whose examples of how "I'm Not the Same Without You" include a spontaneous facelift and an extra inch in height? This is cynicism lite swung tite. You'll grow to love the queen of Bowlmor Lanes, the Jazz Age gangster who takes pride in his work, the souvenirs of dooms past rusting in the back of the sci-fi shop. And before you get het up about the one called "Out of the Ghetto," know this: it's an Isaac Hayes cover. A-