Family

This is smooth. This is smooth rock jazz. And this is Aja, the second track from the Steely Dan album also called Aja. The album was released in September 1977 to critical acclaim. It won the Grammy Award for best engineered (i.e. sounding) recording and Aja has become one of my reference tracks.

I only discovered Aja two years ago. I have been reading about it for decades in Hi-Fi magazines as this song was always being used to test equipment. But, for me, it was a magical moment the first time I heard Aja and, hence, the musicality and dexterity of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker.

I also love this YouTube video of Jamel_AKA_Jamal listening to Aja for the first time. He expresses his feelings so simply and beautifully. Music should always be enjoyed like this. Each time I listen to Aja, I’m a bit like him. It’s pure joy.

In 1994, I was in Réunion Island having started my higher studies in Maths, Physics and Computer Science. I stumbled upon a music magazine with an article on a little known Icelander called Björk. She had just released her debut album, appropriately called Debut, and one of the tracks was Violently Happy.

I don’t know why but there was something in the article or on the cover of the album which prompted me to purchase the CD. I remember a good friend telling me that, surely, an album from Iceland would be crap.

Instead, I got an amazing album with gems such as Human Behaviour, Venus as a Boy, Play Dead, Big Time Sensuality and, of course, Violently Happy which, as one music critic said, was “insanely addictive”.

Madonna is Madame Provocative. But she’s also a damn good singer.

Drowned World/Substitute for Love was a track on her Ray of Light album released in 1998 and produced by William Orbit. I love this live version which Madonna sung in 2006 during the Confessions Tour.

This is another of my reference tracks when I test audio equipment when the bass and drums come at 1:15. Of course, I use the album version to do that as it has much better sound quality.