Robert Christgau reviews the new Steely Dan album in this month's Rolling Stone. He puts it on the same level as Aja, a comparison which in his view is no compliment but which would get me terribly excited if I thought Christgau knew what he was talking about. Still, he uses a five-dollar word, defined below:

contretemps n. An unforeseen event that disrupts the normal course of things; an inopportune occurrence. (dictionary.reference.com)