All rights reserved. Can I trawl through, say, Aretha Franklin’s catalog and find more to like versus Prince or Neil Young? 4 years ago. 1972. Anyway, I think “My Old School” is a little stiff and hammy, but maybe that’s why other people like it. (But damn, it’s a guilty pleasure.) “Do It Again” For examples, check out the quartal vamp and luxurious bridge of “Green Earrings”, or the sick harmonic cadence under the “holy man” refrain in “The Fez” – who else in rock wrote charts like these? For all the cynicism that was so much a part of Steely Dan – an extension of Fagen and Becker’s personalities – the group’s sixth album was pure feel-good music, a glittering synthesis of soft rock, jazz, funk and pop. The rest of the album is pretty good, and a warmer listen than Nature. Pretzel Logic stitches together the last threads of the early Dan style, nevermind the weaker detours. What do you look for in a song? Countdown contends with Aja for the best SD album, and it’s the strongest of the early period, when the Dias-Baxter guitars and the Hodder drums were still teamed with Becker and Fagen in what could be called a working band. A lot of people don’t like Steely Dan. Is “Green Earrings” or the title track better on paper than what Becker and Fagen had written before? The Steely Dan back catalog was remastered in the late 1990s, and the reissues contain amusing liner note reflections from Donald and Walter. The similarity indicates that either a) Steely Dan were ahead of their time in the ‘70s, b) that Two Against Nature is shamelessly retro, or c) that the Becker/Fagen aesthetic is so unique as to be timeless. (What an attractive voice she has.) There were brighter nights in the past, and we’re hopeful we’ll see their kind again. Same goes for the pert beat and sunny harmonies of “Blues Beach”, so sickly sweet. (Denny Dias plugs in, too.) The verse music conjures an appropriate feeling of uncertainty, while the chorus brings in heavenly female backing singers to hint at possible success (“See the glory of...”) only to have Fagen yank the rug out (“...the royal scam”). Especially in this day of Justin … Steely Dan is outstanding on vinyl and CD, but in concert it's not the same sound. Sly verses and a divergent bridge complete the picture. Some say that the Everything Must Go lyrics have a post-9/11 undertone: “Last Mall” fears the end of the world, “Godwhacker” chases down an evil figurehead, and the title track might be about America itself. As far … “Aja” Steely Dan just pretended to be dad rock while playing a much longer and weirder game. Featured solos allow one to differentiate the guitarists: Denny Dias is the chromatic bopper, and Jeff Baxter is the visceral rocker. Back in the ‘70s, real bassists and drummers had the advantage of human variation. “Glamour Profession” looks at an omnipresent drug dealer, set to an insistent disco beat and swimming in a pool of heady voicings. Steely Dan vinyl re-releases were popular with Mofi. Am I a lyrics guy? The other thing about Dan lyrics is that they’re usually oblique enough to inspire multiple meanings. That should make sense. 1976. There are a couple of cutesy tracks in “Janie Runaway” and “Cousin Dupree”, although the incestuous humor of the latter is only funny once. “Daddy Don’t Live in That New York City No More”: The bluesy vamp of this skankazoid tune is not unlike what any decent bar band could dial up, although it takes some subtle turns. Given Homer’s age you can easily ass… The romping ode to bebop “Parker’s Band” references Fifty-Second Street and throws in a Bird-like quote at the end. Take “The Last Mall”, a neo-blues about spree shopping in the face of armageddon. Steely Dan. 1974. They are the total package: I love the music and Reed’s whole journalism major-turned-poet laureate of downtown Manhattan thing, which helped him write some of the best lyrics in the American rock songbook. I can’t comment for sure, and Becker and Fagen insisted the songs were written before that fateful event. “King of the World”: Like “Razor Boy”, this track blends disparate elements, and much of the surface activity sounds dated, like the wah guitar, Echoplex, and game-show synthesizer. Listening to pretty much any Steely Dan song can best be described as swaddling into a virtuosic sonic cocoon, welcoming a dozen-plus instrumentalists to … Aja was long in the making, Gaucho even longer. I heard 2vN the day it was released, and the way it reclaimed the old Dan sound was startling. The writing and arrangements continue to mature in the better material. Blending elements of rock, jazz, latin music, R&B, blues and sophisticated studio production with cryptic and ironic lyrics, the band enjoyed critical and commercial … Actually, for most of its existence, Steely Dan has been those 2 guys, or was, until sadly Walter Becker … By this point, Steely Dan is very good at creating self-contained musical narratives while leaving some mystery for the listener to ponder, and on that point, “Doctor Wu” has inspired more interpretations than almost any other SD lyric. When I first got into Steely Dan back in the early 1990s, Katy Lied was my least favorite record because it seemed so, well, adult and wimpy, but I grew into it. (Feldman appears on a few other SD albums, playing piano and/or percussion.) Steely Dan was not a jazz group in practice, but they sure had the language down. The global apocalypses and intimate meltdowns Steely Dan chronicled in their albums — which bore such bleak and/or enigmatic titles as Pretzel Logic, Katy Lied, The Royal Scam and Everything Must Go — were so brilliantly rendered that they made annihilation seem ecstatically inviting. The sci-fi criminal fantasy “Sign in Stranger” moves to a skanky beat and soulful piano, and “The Fez”, love it or hate it, dives deep into the disco pocket, replete with synth strings and countless chord changes. We’re all just sitting around in our sweatpants thinking about how good things were back in the day, even if that was less than a year ago. 2000, “A weekend of bliss / Then the rainy season”. Stringy hair, boots on amps, boogie chillun, color blindness, a criminal element – the cultural bridges in that two-part episode stood proud. Any Steely Dan fans out there? Take “The Royal Scam”, a story of immigrants trying to get a foothold in a new country. I’m most impressed with the harmonic modulations and how the emotions shift accordingly, as when Fagen sings the “Aja” refrain. On the other hand, if you tell me you don’t like Steely Dan, the other band I pair with the Velvet Underground on my short-list of musicians who I think I truly get, I’ll understand. The radio hit “Hey Nineteen” follows, decorated by Hugh McCracken guitar and a Fagen synth solo. 1980, “Drive west on Sunset to the sea / Turn that jungle music down”. Through the fadeout, Steve Gadd’s drum solo releases all of the song’s suggested feelings. I mean this in terms of music and lyrics and not arrangement and production. They succeed for the most part, although the random references can seem forced. “Show Biz Kids”: ...making movies of themselves / You know they don’t give a f*ck about anybody else. Very talented musicians playing the songs. Denny Dias is still around to lend a good solo or two, as are hired guitarists Larry Carlton, Dean Parks, and Rick Derringer, along with pianist Michael Omartian and drummer Jeff Porcaro, among others. The music has as many twists and turns as progressive rock, although Steely Dan’s efforts are smoother. The next three albums are all track for track pretty much as perfect as they get. A song like “Pixeleen” exemplifies the Dan at their best; this funny ode to a digital heroine is rendered with all the sophistication of an oldie like “Glamour Profession” and has an extra hook in Carolyn Leonhart’s support vocal. Despite a couple of choice tunes, it was even slicker than Aja (a near impossible feat!) I’ve never cared for either the song or the guitar; the verses are nice, but the chorus hits me as rather pedestrian. It’s a moody album, a loose concept record looking at a bunch of people whose best days are behind them but maybe don’t want to admit it. 1977. There was always something cool about them that I couldn’t quite explain. Perhaps the ensuing years of wrangling top players left the duo with a DIY sensibility, and there’s no denying the rightness of Becker’s basslines or Fagen’s keyboards. Enjoyable side items include the chummy pop of “Barrytown” and the mutant R&B of “Monkey in Your Soul”, both of which feature “insulting” lyrics, and the latter has fuzz-bass and cool horn riffs to boot. All of this together equals a good-time rock album – with the band’s hair down, so to speak – and a thought-provoking one. But that’s it for the negative commentary. Amidst the plaid furniture of a ‘70s home, you can feel the shag carpet and hear the whirring projector. Becker and Fagen parted ways after this meticulous endeavor, leaving behind not so much a grand finale as another intelligent, dark-humored installment, to be continued or not. Credit Chuck Rainey and Rick Marotta for putting such limber motion into “Peg”, an all around fine piece of work. “Peg” Steely Dan is an American rock band founded in 1972 by core members Walter Becker (guitars, bass, backing vocals) and Donald Fagen (keyboards, lead vocals). It all sounds sad, but if you got to ride around with this guy in his Porsche, you’d think the opposite. The other favorite “Josie” has a relaxed funk backdrop and enlightened chord movement. Steely Dan's fans are notorious for their love of pristine audio quality; they loved virgin vinyl pressings of the Dan's classic studio work and they loved the CD reissues. “Rose Darling”: There’s more than just sneaky lovers to this weirdly endearing story, not that I have a clue as to what it might be. A recent visit to Howard Wright's excellent web site (Howard Wright's Home Page/Howard's Steely Dan Chords and Tabs) provided an extensive/exhaustive insight as to what makes the Dan sound so special. Get InsideHook in your inbox. The tenured guitarists are Denny Dias (the jazzy one) and Jeff Baxter (the skunky rock one), plus guest Elliot Randall, who drops a much celebrated solo into “Reelin’ in the Years”, a longtime radio staple. You?? Steely Dan and Blood Sweat and Tears were the two best jazz/rock fusion bands in the history of the many sub-genres rock and roll, imo. As a former producer, I would get to a point where I had heard a mix so many ways that it all started to run together to me, and I had a hard time finding the 'best' mix. If so, out of the countless hours I’ve spent in my lifetime with the headphones on or a record playing nearby, has one musician or group brought me more happiness overall? 1975, “I know you’re used to sixteen or more / Sorry we only have eight”. Steely Dan; the Golden Years, or I Remember Steely Dan.…“ “That Was the Steely Dan That Was,” Fagen suggested. Without a significant lyric, it falls into the “good filler” role. Walter Becker handles bass alongside drummer Jim Hodder. Blending elements of rock, jazz, latin music, R&B, blues and sophisticated studio production with cryptic and ironic lyrics, the band enjoyed critical and commercial success starting from the early 1970s until breaking up in 1981. Thread Status: Not open for further replies. One of SD’s most original pieces. I don’t think they’re out to glorify their imaginary characters – some of whom are rather degenerate – but they use obscure scenarios to set up a droll punchline or two. Steely Dan is an awesome band because they really were perfectionists in regard to every element of their music. For you younger people, Steely Dan was a rock band from the 1970's. The dad was a big shot just a few years earlier; a developer or something like that. Under the cover of a catchy chorus and/or polite groove, they sometimes slide into subversive subject matter, if only for comedic or ironic purpose. “Bodhisattva”: This rocking overture was obviously geared for the stage and should be heard in that spirit. Listening to Gaucho just makes it all seem a bit more tolerable. “Pearl of the Quarter”: A gentle, country-ish aside to a lady of Louisiana. Anyway, I mentioned poise and that’s what the album has in spades. Steely Dan just pretended to be dad rock while playing a much longer and weirder game. The worst band ever is???? Steely Dan, American rock band that drew from the gamut of American musical styles to create some of the most intelligent and complex pop music of the 1970s. In which Steely Dan reaches the apex of smooth sophistication. The player roster starts to shift a little bit, not that it makes a dramatic difference to the music. Watching video of Steely Dan in the studio and reading stories of their recording obsession is simply mindblowing. Any Steely Dan fans out there? I would love to discuss the band. 348. The dark immigrant tale “Royal Scam” milks a hesitant vamp under scattered horn dialogue, releasing suspense in a majestic title refrain. The opening vamp, by the way, rips off Keith Jarrett’s “Long as You Know You’re Living Yours”, and he eventually got compensated for it. With the leadoff “Kid Charlemagne”, the Dan becomes stronger and funkier than ever before. I suppose that risk is run in trying to obtain the tightest backbeat possible. Style: I would have preferred more dynamics within the tracks, but 90% of the playing is as classy as can be. Gaucho What do you think of the band? But for now, we’re all sort of boring and uncool. And awesome. He states that it is the consistent/constant use of what the Dan call (using their own … As Alex Pappademas wrote for Pitchfork, “The only character who’s having any kind of communal fun is the coke dealer on ‘Glamour Profession,’ who makes calls from a basketball star’s car phone and takes meetings over Mr. Chow dumplings with ‘Jive Miguel…from Bogotá.’’ People being past their prime honestly never sounded so good. They sent it out as a single, and while it’s a little too irritating for that job, it works in the album context. The similarity indicates that either a) Steely Dan were ahead of their time in the ‘70s, b) that Two Against Nature is shamelessly retro, or c) that the Becker/Fagen aesthetic is so unique as to be timeless. I love that line. Skunk Baxter was with the Doobies at that time, and he acted like a stereotypical rockin’ white boy as Dee looked on in wonder and Rerun learned a lesson about bootlegging. Is it the actual music, like the piano or guitar or whatever instrument is leading the pack? This is a refined waltz piece with a touching vocal and jazzy Dias solo. Sailing along for years in left leaning liberality and discovering the significant other is DVRing Glen Beck. Donald Fagen does most of the vocals, deferring elsewhere to a fellow named David Palmer. Like Billy Joel, another famously disliked famous songwriter who found fame in the 1970s, trashing Steely Dan is practically a sport. Or hear the tune of false reassurance that lines the chorus of “Doctor Wu”, which turns to a darker plea (“Are you with me Doctor?”) at the end. I’ll stamp the first three tracks as certified classics and savor the flavors of the other four. The band’s seventh album in under a decade, and last until 2000’s Two Against Nature, Gaucho sets itself apart from the rest of the band’s output with just how seamless it is despite a historically difficult production process. Steely Dan is an American rock band founded in 1972 by core members Walter Becker (guitars, bass, backing vocals) and Donald Fagen (keyboards, lead vocals). What does the name "Steely Dan" really mean? Then there’s the fact that Lou Reed and John Cale both put out a handful of nearly-as-perfect solo albums (and let’s not forget some of the stuff Moe Tucker did in the ‘80s with her old bandmates and members of Sonic Youth helping her out — also golden), and overall, it’s difficult for me to find a band that I mesh with as well as the Velvets. Steely Dan refers to "Steely Dan III from Yokohama," a strap-on dildo from the novel The Naked Lunch by William Burroughs. It’s basically an instrumental that happens to have a vocal part. “Chain Lightning”: I wouldn’t consider this altered blues a major SD entry by any means, but it’s one of the more ironic examples of an outrageous lyric set to unthreatening music. It's a masterpiece. Jeff Baxter’s chicken-scratch guitar is given much prominence, although his carefree style would soon be subsumed by the sophistication of Larry Carlton, et al. The middle section features outstanding solos from Wayne Shorter (tenor sax) and Denny Dias in last Dan guitar appearance. Steely Dan and their lame-ass fans can put on your sky blue Tom’s, hand me down captain’s caps, and sail into the yacht rock sunset, because … Steely Dan even went so far as to prompt their brilliant Grammy Award-winning Chief Engineer Roger Nichols to create a machine called to provide some of the drum and percussion sounds on the song "Hey Nineteen" from the Gaucho album (and a few years later on Donald Fagen's 1982 masterwork, The Nightfly). and somewhat bland, too. “Fire in the Hole” carries a certain weight, too. By this point, Steely Dan is very good at creating self-contained musical narratives while leaving some mystery for the listener to ponder, and on that point, “Doctor Wu” has inspired more interpretations than almost any other SD lyric. That’s why the band was popular in the 1970s and why it continues to draw converts today. steely dan sucks ass and is a shining example of why a lot of proggy jazzy stuff is so boring despite having really good musicianship — Princess Ploom (@PloomPrincess) September 17, 2020 If you have a news scoop or an interesting story for us, please reach out at (323) 421-7514 “Babylon Sisters” sets a scene of pure luxury to start, with a slow shuffle beat, swirling electric piano hitting dense chords, horn augmentation (including bass clarinets), and a laid back vocal. “Glamour Profession” Posted by. These characters are more in line with another famous, brilliant, hilarious and cynical musician who found fame in the 1970s: Warren Zevon. 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