Steely Dan vs. Fleetwood Mac

not even close

oh god

http://www.alexandgregory.com/images/Luke%20vs%20vader.jpg

not even close

I was tempted to do a Steely Dan vs. ABBA poll - that would be a true battle of the '70s stalwarts.

I'd say it's too close to call: two different kinds of studio perfectionism. I love Rumours, Tusk, and assorted singles more than the SD catalogue combined, and it's a lot tougher, weirder, and warmer than any music of its era; but SD is a band to grow old with.

if Christine McVie had replaced David Palmer you would have had the greatest band of all time.

but the Dan versus ABBA is totally easy: the Dan by a fucking mile.

this one is so hard i can't even wrap my head around it right now.

Hmm... that's not how I would call it. Fleetwood Mac have a few great songs, but not nearly as many as ABBA.

"but the Dan versus ABBA is totally easy: the Dan by a fucking mile."

Can I flip that around please?

I was reading a review for Mamma Mia the other day and every song they mentioned made me play it in my head.

I like Dan, but Fleetwood Mac wins this and ABBA would win the alternate contest with ease, as well.

Fleetwood>ABBA>Fleetwood>>>>>>>>>>>>Dan

Fleetwood Mac are allowed be in it twice.

Yeah for me it's Fleetwood by a good margin.

ABBA vs. Dan is a toss-up. Both easily prevail over Fleetwood Mac.

in spite of "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow" which made me gag twice this wknd xp

You gagged with emotion.

it's kind of sad that we didn't just all post "not even close"

Poor Poem Rocket ;_;

"it's kind of sad that we didn't just all post "not even close""

Damn Soto!

I know, right?

Okay, people need to stop doing that

10 years ago it would have been tough, but the older i get the more i really only care about lindsey's Tusk songs and a handful of tracks from the P. Green era.

Not caring about Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie = eating babies.

i know. i'm kind of ashamed.

I like Fleetwood Mac's songs fine and much respect for Buckingham's vision but a thousand Fleetwood Macs in a thousand studios working for a thousand years would still never write one lyric fit to stand next to even medium-strength Dan

I mean those of you who dig the artifice realize that FM are basically confessional folk with a lot of money behind it, right?

Mac by a mile.

Noted, John.

As far as the Mac songwriters go, during their most popular phase:

Nicks>>>>>McVie>Buckingham

xxp
doesn't really tell us much about their pop songwriting sensibilty

All equal, Lindsey pokes a head out but never wrote Over and Over, Hold Me, Everywhere or even Sarah or Storms

exactly

(though i do dig Hold Me)

No, those are my favourite mcvie and stevie songs

Fleetwood Mac

Approximate number of Mac discs I own, including solos, bootlegs and Walter Egan's "Fundamental Roll": 14

Precise number of Dan discs I own: 0

J0hn OTM Dan all the way you Mac apologists disgust me

(j/k)

No apologies here!

ILX doesn't want heroin and wry wit. ILX wants to dump its husband for the sound guy.

roflz

^^^rockism 101^^^

I mean those of you who dig the artifice realize that FM are basically confessional folk with a lot of money behind it, right?

as if SD didn't have exactly as much money behind it!

lyrically SD are cold motherfuckers, standing at miles and miles' worth of ironic distance from everything they wrote about. FM are warm motherfuckers, lying prone about three inches beneath everything they wrote about. at least i think that's how it works. and i love 'em both.

I dunno – there's plenty of distance on Tusk, especially on the Buckingham tunes.

weird, i hear almost everything he did in FM as emotionally naked and raw and direct. there's lots of anger and hurt and bitterness and jealousy and who knows what else, but i don't hear distance.

Nicks > McVie > Buckingham

"the making of peg." awesome.

as if SD didn't have exactly as much money behind it!

ha dude I'm not demonizing the money, I'm saying "take the money away and what are you left with? confessional folk" - the same isn't true of Steely Dan, there aren't many folk singers fucking around with Gb7b9s & shit

Fleetwood Mac are OK and all, but Steely Dan still deserve to walk this.

SD don't read to me as circumspect or knowing, just kind of cowardly, like all misanthropes.

sorta agree here. i like sd, obv. very talented guys. but i find their disdain for their music contemporaries, their whole "look at all these stupid hippies, they're not smart like us" vibe kinda sad, very much a nerd's revenge kind of thing. and i'm talking about the interviews they've given over the years, but it also comes thru in the music to my ears.

I'd vote for FM because they make me feel something. SD make me feel nothing.

These abbreviations confuse me. FM, no static at all!

SD make me feel nothing.

Not even creeped out? Or totally fucking destitute?

No, nothing

John D's brilliant post has got me thinking about Lindsey Buckingham's production, especially this bit: "and the placement of Nicks's voice, more in the middle than up-top which is her Dreams position"

The revelation that was in this for me, and I've heard variations on the theme articulated elsewhere is that unlike most producers, and this is especially true of his use of mixing, Buckingham's production is essentially sculptural. Each fragment moves about in space, operating in relation to each other instead of receding away from the listener into the tapestry of the mix. Hold me is a perfect example, where the sense of space is cramped with elements suddenly replacing each other, but glimpses into the centre of it reveal a tantalising emptiness. In fact this seems to be the hallmark, to me, of his style. They move around a centre and our position is unmoored instead of allowing us a clear window to look in.

i haven't heard anything close to as magical by the dan as by fm. maybe a few things...

j0hn was pretty otm above about form and content. fm were such a form-conscious, songwriting kind of band, but never afraid to kick you softly with a wtf transition or resolution or whatever that just takes everything to a higher plane. and the vocals. no other band had vocals like those.

and i'm going to agree with the "clever" steely dan criticisms above, though i really think they're sympathetic overall to whoever they're riffing on in the lyrics. but the underlying persona or viewpoint never hit me as hard as something like nicks in "storms," as clumsy as those lyrics can sometimes sound. the dan are a little too.. straight/macho underneath all the sharpness while fm can be out and proud when they want to be.

agh that didn't come out right.. not "out and proud," i didn't want it to be an easy queer thing.. just less obsessed about rules for guys and guys dealing with chicks... those sorts of observations are all so particular sometimes, hard-edged, hard to base something on, or something i like on. heh i give up, i just like fm more (though i do love sd).

i think a lot of the melancholy i get from the Dan comes from this sort of reactionary, look-at-the-stupid-hippies thing; they were surveying the ruins of the 60s when they got started and their preference for 'old' musical forms (jazz, rnb) can be seen as a sort of sad reversion back to old things that while familiar have this layer of dust, this remove from vitality; they saw that the summer of love ended in horror and disillusion and drew back. but this reversion back into 'dated' styles and ironic distance is not cold or heartless; its deeply emotional because they knew what had been lost

yeah maybe noone will know what i mean by this but I KNOW IM NOT WRONG

Each fragment moves about in space, operating in relation to each other instead of receding away from the listener into the tapestry of the mix. Hold me is a perfect example, where the sense of space is cramped with elements suddenly replacing each other, but glimpses into the centre of it reveal a tantalising emptiness.

This nails it. "Little Lies" and "Seven Wonders" use the same dynamics.

fleety stan
mealy flan
steetwood flack
hurting drunk

i like aja more than any fleetwood mac album but the answer here is clearly fleetwood mac, because of "dreams" and "sara" and "gypsy" and "empire state" and etc. etc. etc.

mr gay if SD beats FM i will quit ilx

-- deeznuts, Monday, July 28, 2008 3:39 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Link

libcrypt on the ball!

I've heard both Sara and Tusk on shitty classic radio station at work over the last two days :]

If you really want to split up some ILM readers, make them choose between Steely Dan and The Minutemen.

I saw SD on Saturday and they were great as usual ... really cool setlist this time (better than last year) ... they played fucking "PARKER'S BAND"!!

very hard to choose between these two .. they are both so integral to so many different stages of my life .. with the gun to the head, I suppose I go FM for Lindsey's production genius and certain points in my life where their music meant everything to me. but SD totally fucking rule and only lose the race by about the same margin as the Serbian swimmer

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

SD easily, for consistency not least. I like the high points of Fleetwood but would never bother with their whole discography. btw, this guy must be on ilm

Steely Dan 63
Fleetwood Mac 59
Poem Rocket 8

mr gay if SD beats FM i will quit ilx

-- deeznuts, Monday, July 28, 2008 3:39 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Link

Bye-bye deeznuts.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Whoa got in before ILX System.

No mandate

poem rocket split the FM vote

Yes! The Dan rulz, what a shocker upset, I thought from the beginning of this thread that FM would win in a walk...

I love the fact that Poem Rocket have secured a little toehold of immortality via this poll.

They put out one of the best fake Throwing Muses songs I know on their last album.

did Poem Rocket cost Fleetwood Mac deserved victory or deny Steely Dan their rightful blowout? Historians will debate this question for years

I voted for Poem Rocket 4 times. I'm hella disappointed they didn't get more.

John D., so true, it is a philosophical debate for the ages, like colore vs disegno, or Coke Vs. Pepsi

JUSTICE

Poem Rocket 8

XD

Steely Dan 63
Fleetwood Mac 59

ILM is stupid

ILM wanted deeznuts to quit posting! (Also ILM sometimes has great taste)

What am I missing with Steely Dan?
To my (cloth) ears they just sound like the Beta Band with bigger yachts.

And what, precisely, is not awesome about that?

Haha that's great!

summation of thread:

deeznuts: Dude, Steely Dan comes across way too much as self-absorbed, shallow assholes to win this. FM all the way!

J0hn D.: Actually, SD opens up to you in all sorts of unexpected ways if you're into music theory and such...

(villagers said "Huzzah!")

deeznuts: But that's bullshit! Isn't that like gloating that Yngwe is on such another level that losers like Ron Asheton could never even see?

(Villagers said "Booo!")

J0hn D.: You never understood anything in yr entire life!!!

(But then J0hn D. made up for this by saying some nice things about Sara and everyone was like "J0hn D. for President!" Including me.)

and then there was Shakey...

hey Shakey, I like Steely Dan, too. Wanna know why?

I've become more familiar with the Dan as an adult (and as a musician) that's stemmed mostly from being rewarded with the depth and breadth of their material and being drawn in by that. Lyrically, compositionally, and performance-wise I just got really drawn into their catalog, its very rich in detail and unique and funny and biting and catchy and sounds near-effortless, which is the real magic of pop.

ILM rulez!

heard this guy on the radio talking about Steely Dan and couldn't help wondering if he was an ilxor.

Haha, that's the spirit mate! Only ilxors could be insane enough to actually dig Steely Dan. No sane person in the real world would ever choose Steely Dan over Fleetwood Mac. Also, didn't FM sell more records in the US? Ah, but I see I've been trolled now. I kept my mouth shut every time someone mentioned them when the Smiths vs. Cocteau Twins results were out. I knew these posters were only trolling and I was like "no way are we going to go through this goddamn Steely Dan thing again on ILM"

But this time I guess the trolls got me. There is no living reason in all of humankind why Steely Dan should have beat Fleetwood Mac in a poll. It's a grave injustice and I won't stand for it.

Never change Bimble!

Steely Dan have never rocked. Fleetwood Mac have. Fleetwood Mac wins.

aww. thanks guys.

I can live with these results. I listen to Fleetwood Mac more than Steely Dan, but Steely Dan wins because Fagen and Becker are hilarious interviews and brilliant lyricists, and the Mac folks come off as total rock star cartoons whenever they open their mouths off-stage or outside the studio. I mean, I'll rep for "Tusk" as my favorite album of all time, but I was just watching the "Rumours" Classic Albums disc and, jeez - I know the disc's creation was traumatic and all, but get over yourselves, Fleetwood Mac. Every single band big and small was swimming in drugs back then - including Steely Dan! But you don't hear Becker talking about his girlfriend's OD or whatever like it shook the world to its core or anything.

hahahahahhhahhaha

Great thread.

Bimble otm.

One of my favorite threads.