<<< BACKWARD (“Lies I Can Believe”) ||| ONWARD (“Babylon Sisters (Live)”) >>> *** STEELY DAN SUNDAY INDEX *** Walter Becker and Donald Fagen have complementing talents — that’s a major reason of what made their partnership such a success — but there’s some overlap too, and one of the things they are both big on is making their songs groove.

<<< BACKWARD (“Fall Of ’92″) ||| ONWARD (“Medical Science”) >>> *** STEELY DAN SUNDAY INDEX *** With vicious and vulgar prose, it’s easy to figure out why “Fall of ’92″ failed to get included on 11 Tracks of Whack. I’m not really sure what barred “Lies I Can Believe” from making it onto the disc.

<<< BACKWARD (“Little Kawai”) ||| ONWARD (“Lies I Can Believe”) >>> *** STEELY DAN SUNDAY INDEX *** There were a few tracks that didn’t make it into the Whack Eleven, and “Fall of ’92″ was one of them. Musically, it can hang with most any of the approved ones found on 11 Tracks Of Whack

<<< BACKWARD (“This Moody Bastard”) ||| ONWARD (“Little Kawai”) >>> *** STEELY DAN SUNDAY INDEX *** This detailed re-evaluation of Becker’s first solo record from the mid-90s gave me a better appreciation of the album, but there are some quirks I still can’t overcome and the whole of “Hat Too Flat” is one of them.

<<< BACKWARD (“My Waterloo”) ||| ONWARD (“Hat Too Flat”) >>> *** STEELY DAN SUNDAY INDEX *** Back during the time that 11 Tracks Of Whack was new, I’d pop that CD out of the player after “Girlfriend” most of the time; I thought that most of this album’s filler were loaded up on the back end. Even when I’d occasionally [...]

<<< BACKWARD (“Girlfriend”) ||| ONWARD (“This Moody Bastard”) >>> *** STEELY DAN SUNDAY INDEX *** Somewhere in the distant future we’ll finally reach Walter Becker’s Circus Money in this series, but today brings us to a song that, looking back, is an advance taste to that 2008 release.

<<< BACKWARD (“Cringemaker”) ||| ONWARD (“My Waterloo”) >>> *** STEELY DAN SUNDAY INDEX *** There are some things I don’t like about “Girlfriend” and other things I just love.

<<< BACKWARD (“Hard Up Case”) ||| ONWARD (“Girlfriend”) >>> *** STEELY DAN SUNDAY INDEX *** The real charm of 11 Tracks of Whack is not how much it sounds like classic Steely Dan, but how much it distances itself from it.

<<< BACKWARD (“Lucky Henry”) ||| ONWARD (“Cringemaker”) >>> *** STEELY DAN SUNDAY INDEX *** Throw together a funky, faux-reggae pulse, some dancehall horns, a delectably angular Becker guitar solo and his light-hearted humor about a relationship based on desperation, and you have a “Hard Up Case.”

<<< BACKWARD (“Book Of Liars”) ||| ONWARD (“Hard Up Case”) >>> *** STEELY DAN SUNDAY INDEX *** I consider 11 Tracks of Whack an uneven record with several good moments and even a few brilliant ones. But it’s not until Track 5 where it takes its first real dip.