Steely Dan: "Steely Dan's name has been popping up as a hip musical crush. Remember, this glossy bop-pop was the indifferent aristocracy to punk rock's stone-throwing in the late 70's. People fought

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Who here has heard "You better walk it like you talk it or you'll lose that beat" ?

As much as I love Steely Dan, it's just of archival interest to me...

― Dave AKA Dave (dave225.3), Friday, 17 March 2006 20:13 (eighteen years ago) link

I thought that was a Velvet Underground song.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 17 March 2006 20:39 (eighteen years ago) link

my mom loves the dan. but she doesnt know all the albums like me. im like this Royal Scam/Aja/Katy Lied/Pretzel Logic TIED FOR FIRST Countdown and Can't Buy a Thrill IN A CLOSE SECOND!

― chaki (chaki), Friday, 17 March 2006 20:41 (eighteen years ago) link

same name/ completely different!

xpost

― Dave AKA Dave (dave225.3), Friday, 17 March 2006 20:41 (eighteen years ago) link

snippets:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000011AA/104-8171844-8508707?v=glance&n=5174

― Dave AKA Dave (dave225.3), Friday, 17 March 2006 20:43 (eighteen years ago) link

my college radio had a copy of that. it wasn't very good.

― s/c johnson wax (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 17 March 2006 20:44 (eighteen years ago) link

college radio STATION

― s/c johnson wax (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 17 March 2006 20:44 (eighteen years ago) link

Do'h .. fuck that shit. I just discovered the Steely Dan Archive:
http://www.steelydanarchive.com/sounds/

― Dave AKA Dave (dave225.3), Friday, 17 March 2006 20:45 (eighteen years ago) link

(xpost to myself)

― Dave AKA Dave (dave225.3), Friday, 17 March 2006 20:45 (eighteen years ago) link

holy crap...I might take a whole day sometime so sift through that whole page and find tracks worth keeping.

― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Friday, 17 March 2006 20:50 (eighteen years ago) link

I'm in for some downloading tonight I think... fucking goldmine. (even if it's just bronze...)

― Dave AKA Dave (dave225.3), Friday, 17 March 2006 20:51 (eighteen years ago) link

where's gaucho, chaki? : (

― gear (gear), Friday, 17 March 2006 22:07 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah, where's GAUCHO??
Mine would a little something like this
-Gaucho/Countdown/Pretzel tied for FIRST 'but lately I'm thinking Gaucho might actually narrowly be the UNDISPUTED numero uno)
-Aja
-Can't buy a Thrill
-Katy Lied
-Two Against Nature
-Royal Scam

I don't "Everthing Must go" well enough yet.

― Le Baaderonixx de Benedict Canyon (baaderonixx), Friday, 17 March 2006 22:30 (eighteen years ago) link

OH SHIT! Gaucho is 1 1/2 place.

― chaki (chaki), Friday, 17 March 2006 23:11 (eighteen years ago) link

I grew up listening to Steely Dan, and always hated it...

...until about a year ago. It started sounding good. I just didn't get it before. This is a really interesting thread and a good starting point for me to start exploring their work.

― josh in sf (stfu kthx), Saturday, 18 March 2006 01:37 (eighteen years ago) link

1st tier: Gaucho, Countdown, Everything Must Go
2nd tier: Katy Lied, Pretzel Logic, Aja
3rd tier: Can't Buy a Thrill, Two Against Nature, The Royal Scam

i grew up listening to Steely Dan; my dad was a big fan. I've gone through periods of listening to them less, but they've been an official 'favourite band' since i was 12 or so. a number of songs have a lot of childhood associations for me. i.e. asking my dad what 'Charlie Freak' was about, and learning all about drugs!

― derrick (derrick), Saturday, 18 March 2006 07:26 (eighteen years ago) link

That Pitchfork quote in the thread title is similar to a Mark E. Smith quote (see the Auteurs entry in Rough GD to Rock.) He was telling Luke Haines that he didn't like his band's glossy Steely Dan sound, saying something like, "We fought wars to kill off that shit."

The Yacht shall rise again.

― ramon fernandez, Monday, 20 March 2006 08:05 (eighteen years ago) link

steely dan pwns the fall ten times over

― gear (gear), Monday, 20 March 2006 08:15 (eighteen years ago) link

Amen

― Le Baaderonixx de Benedict Canyon (baaderonixx), Monday, 20 March 2006 08:43 (eighteen years ago) link

Steely Dan is like the soundtrack to realizing growing up could be more fun than you thought.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Monday, 20 March 2006 15:10 (eighteen years ago) link

"Holy shit - I never realized doing coke w/ an underage girl could be so much fun!"

― David R. (popshots75`), Monday, 20 March 2006 15:15 (eighteen years ago) link

two weeks pass...

i am up at 5 am coding, stoned, listening to aja, discovering first that aja/dante is gone and then that ysi is also dead. steely dan never sounded this good.

― lf (lfam), Thursday, 6 April 2006 07:35 (eighteen years ago) link

I am now dancing to 'Time out of Mind' in my hotel room in Tunisia. On my own.

― Le Baaderonixx de Benedict Canyon (baaderonixx), Saturday, 8 April 2006 15:25 (eighteen years ago) link

these are really special moments.

― lf (lfam), Saturday, 8 April 2006 18:01 (eighteen years ago) link

Why does every Steely Dan thread make me feel like I've stumbled into Bizarro ILM?

I honestly don't think I will ever like this band. Lord knows I've given them chance after chance, usually upon having someone recommend one song or another as the one that stands out above the pack. I remain unconvinced. Others on the board have managed, at long last, to help me begin to understand what they appreciate about them, but SD sounds deeply, fundamentally wrong to my ears. But I suppose that much of the music that I enjoy would likely provoke that reaction in others. To each their own, yeah?

― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Saturday, 8 April 2006 20:05 (eighteen years ago) link

you sound like a weirdo. what do you listen to? don't say radiohead.

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 8 April 2006 20:19 (eighteen years ago) link

~~Radiohead.~~ Coldplay.

― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Saturday, 8 April 2006 20:23 (eighteen years ago) link

you sound like a norwegian

― gear (gear), Saturday, 8 April 2006 20:33 (eighteen years ago) link

hey deric,

quit being such a hater.

love,
music

― lf (lfam), Saturday, 8 April 2006 20:35 (eighteen years ago) link

music asked me to pass that on

― lf (lfam), Saturday, 8 April 2006 20:35 (eighteen years ago) link

Dear music,

I love you. I truly do. And it is with love that I ask: exactly how much Scotchgard did you huff before giving birth to that flipper baby that you call Steely Dan?

LYLAS,
Deric

Oh, now that was just unfair of me...

― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Saturday, 8 April 2006 21:17 (eighteen years ago) link

(All previous and subsequent replies to this thread written with full knowledge that criticising the Dan on ILM is a battle already long-lost.)

― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Saturday, 8 April 2006 21:20 (eighteen years ago) link

the emperor wears clothes, the kid is just high

― gear (gear), Saturday, 8 April 2006 21:37 (eighteen years ago) link

Well, I mean honestly: all anti-Dan sentiment espoused on this board is met with responses ranging from disingenuous snarkiness to outright hostility (excepting those few among us with dissenting opinions). There seems little to be gained in mounting a defense against the deluge of ILM Steely Love, and I assure you that I'm not the one who's going to be able to provide a solid, ready-for-print dissection of that which makes Steely Dan unpalatable. The fact that I've done little more than toss in my two cents and a bit of snark in return doesn't mean that there isn't a case to be made against. It just means I'm not much cop as an intraweb pundit.

― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Saturday, 8 April 2006 21:51 (eighteen years ago) link

"but SD sounds deeply, fundamentally wrong to my ears."

how exactly do they sound deeply, fundamentally wrong?

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 8 April 2006 22:04 (eighteen years ago) link

oh jesus christ how many times have we had this fucking "i dont get sd" discussion then a year or two later dood comes back and says "i cant stop listening to aja!"

― shredding repis on the gnar gnar rad (chaki), Saturday, 8 April 2006 22:12 (eighteen years ago) link

Their music always sounds, to me, as if it's been drained of something essential. Vitality, spark, et al. World-weariness and cynicism seem to be prime among Steely Dan's lyrical themes, which is wholly valid except that it seems somehow ingrained in their very character and somehow carries over into their music.

(Now before anyone shows up to pummel me with anecdotes about Fagen and Becker's eternally sunny dispositions and how this informed their music ironically, please note that I'm operating from a non-fan perspective here. By which I mean that I don't know a lot of the background details, but that I'm simply relating what seems to me to be the case.)

In short: (almost) everything of theirs I've heard sounds like elevator music. Which is not the type of thing I enjoy listening to. I'm still willing to be convinced otherwise, but the Dan Fans are batting a big fat goose egg in that arena thus far.

― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Saturday, 8 April 2006 22:18 (eighteen years ago) link

(In re: the possibility of being convinced and shredding's comment above, note that my position on Fleetwood Mac was similar until fairly recently, when I came to realize that the Buckingham songs on Tusk are a wonder to behold. But I've heard an awful lot of Steely Dan.)

― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Saturday, 8 April 2006 22:21 (eighteen years ago) link

WHY DID YOU ENCOURAGE HIM, SCOTT??

― shredding repis on the gnar gnar rad (chaki), Saturday, 8 April 2006 22:21 (eighteen years ago) link

i'm sorry. i was bored and he wouldn't go away.

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 8 April 2006 22:24 (eighteen years ago) link

lol

― shredding repis on the gnar gnar rad (chaki), Saturday, 8 April 2006 22:25 (eighteen years ago) link

you aren't ready yet, deric. give it time. if you were meant to receive the glory, you will certainly receive it someday. but you can't force these things. your epiphany, if it comes, will be blinding and instantaneous. you will remember nothing of your former ignorance.

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 8 April 2006 22:28 (eighteen years ago) link

Ha ha. It's happened before (Royal Trux being another "once dismissed, now beloved" example that springs to mind), so it can't be discounted completely out of hand.

I think that I can at least respect them on the basis of their obsessiveness, which is something that often fascinates me and attracts me to music/art in general. There's something in the quality of their obsession, though, that seems to suggest that they don't know when or where to quit (much like myself w/r/t this thread). Just because you can achieve a high-gloss sheen through obsessive attention to detail doesn't mean it's necessarily advisable.

― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Saturday, 8 April 2006 22:42 (eighteen years ago) link

yes it does! (although i might just be like that). and if you can come around with royal trux (finger down throat rolling eyeballs around) then certainly steely has a chance...

― Susan Douglas (Susan Douglas), Saturday, 8 April 2006 22:46 (eighteen years ago) link

lol i love susan

― shredding repis on the gnar gnar rad (chaki), Saturday, 8 April 2006 22:55 (eighteen years ago) link

Deric's been telling me he was a genius since he was 17.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Saturday, 8 April 2006 23:50 (eighteen years ago) link

Oh Deric. Steely Dan rule on a lot of songs!

― Matthew C Perpetua (inca), Sunday, 9 April 2006 01:05 (eighteen years ago) link

Steely Dan sounded OK until Destroyer's Rubies changed my life and cured my cancer.

― timmy tannin (pompous), Sunday, 9 April 2006 01:22 (eighteen years ago) link

OTM. My penis fell off but then Destroyer's Rubies put it back on with love and sparkles.

― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 9 April 2006 01:38 (eighteen years ago) link

". Remember, this glossy bop-pop was the indifferent aristocracy to punk rock's stone-throwing in the late 70's. People fought and died so our generation could listen to something better. Okay, so they died of overdoses and car crashes. They still had soul. Keep up the good fight. Put down this sports-utility vehicle of a record. As with the urban yuppie driver, the four-wheel drive is never activated."

I think that the latter part of the paragraph shows the writer was at least a little self-deprecating about punk rock and its cultural strength. That said, Steely Dan is pretty cool.

― Harrison Barr (Petar), Sunday, 9 April 2006 01:54 (eighteen years ago) link

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