Steely Dan C or D?

Honestly, their most fervent supporters promote SD's lyrics rather too strenuously. I mean, their early stuff just rocked! And Fagen has almost everything I need from a singer of rock

yeah my favorites are actually all the pre-Aja albums, tbh. I dunno about yr first sentence here tho - I am reminded of a conversation I was having with some studio engineers about Steely Dan, and they were all effusive about how great the records sounded and how tight and complex everything was, but when I mentioned how I loved how all that stuff contrasted with the lyrics I got blank stares, dudes didn't know "Dr. Wu" was about a junkie or that "Movies" was about a pedo. I lol'd.

those guys were musicians/studio engineers tho so maybe that's a bad example. Writers/critics are obviously gonna pay a bit more attention to language.

Also, Can't Buy A Thrill was my gateway to liking Steely Dan, so maybe this is a good album for haters(?)

it made me a convert too

Well, I've said on the Gaucho thread that it's my favorite album after Countdown to Ecstasy -- on a purely musical level too.

res, do you like Soft Machine per chance

don't think i've heard them. why?

well, i will try this thrill album just to expand my efforts... i tried aja and pretzel logic but several successive showers failed to make me feel clean afterwards, so i didn't think that there were others that might change my tune. we'll soon see.

I think the one thing I would hold against the Dan is that pretty much all their sleeve designs/album covers suck, with the exception of Katy Lied.

aja is a beautiful cover!!!

^^^ this

^^^^this

its... stylish, I'll give Phil Hartman that. I don't particularly like it tho. A bunch of their covers (Gaucho, Can't Buy a Thrill, the Royal Scam, Pretzel Logic) are downright stupid and/or ugly

phil hartman: stylish indeed

http://www.tributes.com/obits/tributes/phil_hartman/2680-1-photo.jpg

:(

Royal Scam & CBAT, no doubt. I'm not that fond of Countdown, either. But the rest are A-ok with me.

xx-post

Can't Buy A Thrill's cover is really gawdy but the rest are just fine.

the Pretzel Logic cover has a pretzel vendor on it. Get it? GET IT? For a couple guys with an otherwise sharp and unique sense of humor that joke is kinda uhhhh

i think the sarcasm thing is overplayed, and i'd replace slick/empty with "gorgeous" most of the time. aja's a beautiful record. the lyrics are compressed, bittersweet short stories. they're never glib. they kind of remind me of raymond carver stories, actually. steely dan: more populist than punk?

uhhhh the pretzel logic cover's great

the only one i don't like is 'countdown to ecstasy.' that font.

and i'd replace slick/empty with "gorgeous" most of the time.

I don't think the two are mutually exclusive - beauty and skin depth and all that yaknow...

okay- how do you guys feel about "Reelin' in the Years"?

Dueling guitars!

i think the sarcasm thing is overplayed, and i'd replace slick/empty with "gorgeous" most of the time.

yes. that.

solos are a little much on that one. harmonies on the chorus are killer. lyrics and lead vocal delivery are great. but not the best song on the album.

x-post

"Reelin'" isn't a favorite either. "Do It Again" (which I thought for years was a really sexy Santana song my parents never told me about), sultry and mysterio-so, is lots better.

only a fool would say that

is my favorite song.

I think my favorite Sopranos moment of the whole series is Tony driving away from his house, being followed by the FBI, on his way to do some bad shit, singing along to "Dirty Work" (which is my favorite song on Thrill - either that or Only a Fool Would Say That)

"Do It Again" (which I thought for years was a really sexy Santana song my parents never told me about), sultry and mysterio-so, is lots better.

weird! I totally thought that was a Santana song, like forever! haha

I really like "Reelin'"... also "Dirty Work", "Kings", "Fire In The Hole"

haha yeah...I didn't hear that song among my dad's Dan records growing up (he had mostly the later albums and Gold, which it isn't on for some reason), so there were about 10 years were I thought it was by Santana, and then another 10 years after that where I still thought it was Santana every time I heard it until the vocals came in.

also lol @ the idea of Alfred's parents saying "son, there's this one Santana song that really gets us in the mood that we'd like to tell you about"

I grew up with Santana! "Do It Again" was a hit around the time that Santana was HUGE, and its rhythms are similar.

oh yeah, like i said, i totally made the same mistake myself many times.

i feel strangely comfortable to feel that I'm not the only one who labored under that misapprehension

lol, and my dad also totally loved that song, like in the sense of he would crank up the car stereo's volume when it came on. my dad sorted me with some good music, all things considered...wow

add me to the list who thought it was santana as a child

i've been listening to Thrill and some stuff I'm pleasantly surprised with ("Change of the Guard"), but a lot of it are these 'anonymous' bad 70's songs that I'd hear on classic rock radio for years ("Dirty Work", "Do It Again", "Reeling"), and wonder who these awful artists were. Now I know, they're all probably Steely Dan.

Will continue listening.

Dude, you like Belle and Sebastian.

I think our collective confusion arises from the fact that Juelz Santana has a song called "Do It Again."

Dude, you like Belle and Sebastian.

I never said that, but thanks for that crude pseudo-insult. Regardless, I do find much more to like about Belle and Sebastian than I do about Steely Dan. Belle and Sebastian are probably one of the few bands from this era that people will still be talking about a couple decades from now.

hey I like B&S too!

altho who gives a shit what people will be listening to decades from now, that's a meaningless barometer of quality

it's sad that it has to come down to lame ad hominem attacks when someone says they don't really care for Steely Dan. I didn't attack anyone personally here.

altho who gives a shit what people will be listening to decades from now, that's a meaningless barometer of quality

I see what you're getting at, but I think I would disagree that it's meaningless. I wouldn't necessarily search out stuff simply by trying to figure out whether it would be remembered years from now, but I would argue that the best music has a timeless quality.

Argh, too hard to describe this without writing a treatise, and i don't have the time for that now.

nothing is timeless

I like Belle and Sebastian. You haven't said anything in this thread about Steely Dan that hasn't been applied to B&S a billion times, except maybe the smooth jazz line. I was just surprised and amused cos I thought you must be angry metal guy or something. Seriously, it's fine not to like a band. It helps if you're criticisms aren't ill-informed groundless bollocks tho.

my love is timeless

And if you think "I would argue that the best music has a timeless quality" is a sensible argument, well, here you are on a thread of people loving 30-odd year old albums. Would you like me to hand you your petard or can you hoist yourself?

I know there was a time in my life when I hated the sound of Steely Dan. I have a vague memory of once listening to Katy Lied because I thought the insect picture on the cover looked cool and turning it off almost immediately. It just sounded "old" in lots of ways - that slick '70s sound seemed very dated. The music was kind of a beige blur - too slow, too mellow, too smooth - not very exciting. It was pretty much the opposite of what I was looking for in music at that time: speed, energy, volume, rough-edges, noise, passion. I wanted music that was defiantly and joyously ugly, not music that tried so hard to sound tasteful. There was something almost embarrassing about how studiously well-behaved it was - like someone who always kisses the teacher's ass in school. It was just too grown-up sounding, I guess.

^^^^yeah, me too.

I snapped out of it.

how many fuckin "Steely Dan offends my indie sensibilities"/"Steely Dan used to offend me indie sensibilities"/"Steely Dan roolz u r all corny indie fux" exchanges are we going to have on this board?