The Steely Dan thread

[Guybrush]

Buenas noches, Guest.

I love Steely Dan. No, I'm not a boomer.

Donald Fagen and Walter Becker are legendary for their maddening perfectionism, including things like demanding endless amount of repeated takes for hours and hours and searching for the absolute best musicians for a specific track. They claimed to be able to hear minute errors in timing down to the milliseconds. Their compositions reflected the precision they brought to their recordings, being sophisticated and with strange chordings, but often still catchy as hell. While often lumped in with classic rock, their own idols were very much in the world of jazz and this is evident in their music.

Their hard work and brilliant musical minds would lead to a celebrated run of albums through the 70s to 1980. Every album felt a little more polished than the one before until they reached absolute perfection with 1980's Gaucho. Or was that too polished? Popular opinion usually says Aja from 1977 is their best album.

Which one is your favourite? What are your favourite songs?

[Rubber Soul]

Never really got into Steely Dan and I am a boomer (late era anyway). I mean I don't dislike them or anything like that, but I was more of a Bowiesque glam head and punk fan growing up.

[Guybrush]

I guess Steely Dan and the punk movement did reach the height of their powers at about the same time. I would assume Steely Dan to be close to the polar opposite of what a punker was looking for in music. Today, I appreciate how we can enjoy both the DIY attitude of punk bands as well as the meticulous approach of the studio masters

Answering my own question, I guess their best album may technically be Aja, but my favourite is actually Gaucho. Possibly, my opening post gave that away.

They have such a great many wonderful songs, but the Gaucho title track is one of their finest in my opinion.

It's a bit of a grower (by far most of their songs are), but it's just an amazing piece of music when you get to know it.

[Lisnaholic]

That's a cool track that I've never really paid attention to, so thanks for posting it.

I voted for Countdown To Ecstacy as having songs of consistently high quality throughout. For me it's one of those rare albums that has no low point. Tied for second place come Can't Buy A Thrill and Pretzel Logic. Notice a pattern? As they moved furthur away from their first rocking albums, I began to lose interest in their material. Don't know if that was me, or was it the band losing their head of steam?

[Guybrush]

That's a cool track that I've never really paid attention to, so thanks for posting it.

I voted for Countdown To Ecstacy as having songs of consistently high quality throughout. For me it's one of those rare albums that has no low point. Tied for second place come Can't Buy A Thrill and Pretzel Logic. Notice a pattern? As they moved furthur away from their first rocking albums, I began to lose interest in their material. Don't know if that was me, or was it the band losing their head of steam?

It's funny because for me the trend is mostly opposite I like the way they evolve. I also love Donald Fagen's first solo album The Nightfly from 1982 which feels much like a continuation of Steely Dan to me.

I read that because it was so well produced, a lot of people used it to calibrate their stereos, so I started doing the same. So if I have to f.ex. set or adjust the level of my subwoofer in my studio, I just listen to the opening track IGY (that I know oh so well) and dial in the level of woofer until it sits just right. Then I roll it off ever so slightly because I'm gonna mix and master stuff and don't want my stuff to come out sounding thin.

On top of that, IGY is also a killer track. While not strictly Steely Dan, it still feels on topic for this thread

[Janszoon]

I have to admit, Steely Dan is one of those bands I've never gotten around to giving a chance. Anytime I've ever looked them up, I've recognized their well-known songs. So I'm not completely unfamiliar, but I'd like to give them a real listen. Any suggestions on where to start?

[Guybrush]

I have to admit, Steely Dan is one of those bands I've never gotten around to giving a chance. Anytime I've ever looked them up, I've recognized their well-known songs. So I'm not completely unfamiliar, but I'd like to give them a real listen. Any suggestions on where to start?

It depends a bit. Like me and Lisna favour opposite ends of their discography where I prefer the very disciplined, jazzy and polished band while Lisna perhaps prefers when they were just a little rougher around the edges and perhaps more part of that classic rock world.

My first BIG love for Steely Dan was the song Any Major Dude Will Tell You.

Others include Rikki Don't Lose That Number, Bad Sneakers, Haitian Divorce, Deacon Blues, Do It Again, Peg, Kid Charlemagne, Only a Fool Would Say That, Babylon Sisters, FM.. Too many to list. Every album has something great on it. You can't go terribly wrong.

[Lisnaholic]

Yes, as Guybrush says, just decide which end of the SD spectrum sounds more appealing to you. I'd double up on his rec of Rikki Don't Lose That Number for having one of the catchiest hooks ever. That's on Pretzel Logic, while Do It Again, which you can listen to here, is on Can't Buy A Thrill. Out of focus, out of sync and with a lead singer (David Palmer) who they sadly jettisoned after only one album, this video will at least show you how that short-lived line-up were, live, back in the day:-

Their lyrics are always pretty cryptic, but Do It Again has a line that's clear enough: "You find you're back in Vegas with a handle in your hand"

[Nimbly9]

As much as my yacht rock proclivities draw me in to the perfection that is Aja (and to a lesser extent Gaucho), I've always thought The Royal Scam was their best overall album because it strikes a nice balance between their freewheeling early sound and the smoothness of their commercial peak years.

[Guybrush]

^Thats a great track, D

[Lexi Darling]

I'm not a superfan but Can't Buy a Thrill is my favorite. Do It Again is a bit played out but the rest of it is super solid. In general I prefer their more classic rock side to the jazzier stuff, though I do love The Nightfly and I think Fagen's jazzy style was perfected on that album.