PRETZEL LOGIC

The world of music is a bottomless well. All attempts to get a fair overview will fail. You will always miss important stuff. I have avoided Steely Dan for a while because its name is too close to Steeleye Span's, one of my favourite bands. Steely Dan was established 1972 in Los Angeles and they made seven studio records during the classic rock age. Because I right now am structuring my reviewing around the celebrated year 1974 I picked Steely Dan's third album "Pretzel Logic" which is their fourth highest ranked album here. I like the cover very much where we can se a man selling things you can eat. The album features a lot of instrumentalists, twenty to be precise but only Donald Fagan(keyboards, saxophone, lead vocals), Walter Becker(bass, guitar, vocals), Jeff Baxter(guitar), Denny Bias(guitar) and Jim Hodder(vocals) were listed as the band. But there are a lot of drummers, guitarists and brass people listed as musicians too. Together they created a fine and amazing prog jazz pop record with quality each second.

I wonder if it's possible to listen to this music without smiling. It's so cozy and lovely. Perhaps too cozy for some progers. The little touch of jazz is present all the time and makes the music so intresting. Other influences could be noticed as well such as blues and old-style american brass music. It feels like the music has so many intertexts that it is some American music history in it. Every song except "Moneky in your soul"(6/10) are very good and interesting. "Rikki don't lose that number" and "Any major dude will tell you" do I classify masterpieces. They are both very catchy and intelectual. "Night by night", "East St Louis Toodle Oo" och "Through with buzz"(9/10) are also very unique and very close to perfection. The five other songs are also great and shows just how amazing this musical world of ours is. My average rating ends at 4.23 which becomes four stars! "Pretzel Logic" is highly recommended.