https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhT1DluDTqI
Mark Ronson brought along Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker and local legend Kirin J Callinan to perform ‘Daffodils’ live in the triple j studio for “Like A Version”.
Taken from what sounds like the best album Steely Dan have made in years. I’m being facetious, but Fagen and Becker are at least as big an influence on this album as the 70s and 80s R&B shining through on blockbuster single ‘Uptown Funk’. A travelogue through the US, musically and geographically, Ronson and co-producer Jeff Bhasker traverse the nation, discovering and changing the life of their ‘new Chaka Khan’, Keyone Starr (‘I Can’t Lose’), team up with novelist Michael Chabon for seedy tales of hipsters and overextended nightlife (‘Leaving Los Feliz’, ‘Daffodils’), ropes in Mystikal for a hip-hop shaker glancing at James Brown (‘Feel Right’) and two of the best upper-register voices in pop today – Kevin Parker and Andrew Wyatt, not to mention co-producer Bhasker on a joyous Stevie Wonder esque tune (‘In Case of Fire’) and Wonder himself to drop in on harp (‘Uptown’s First Finale’).
Mark Ronson’s approach as an artist is still defined by the area of music he first mastered – DJing. The joy and energy of slamming songs and styles against each other and bringing together unlikely pairings of musicians, almost like an organic version of sampling. It’s an admirable and generous approach to creativity, and you sometimes get the sense that life for Ronson is a perpetual jam filtered by his own impeccable taste and fuelled by the energy of his good-natured collaborators – not a fuckwit amongst them.
The Fat Angel Sings 