I hadn't discovered these guys until early 2021, but I'm so glad I eventually gravitated to their incredible songwriting; they might be mostly jazz rock, but I'm not surprised that they're on ProgArchives to be honest. Their pop tendencies have always been combined with sophisticated arrangements and complex melodies, even in their most simplistic works. So I ask, what's your favorite song by Steely Dan, or your favorite cryptic lyric by them? I'd love to know 

The musicianship is stellar, masterful song writing skills. The whole of Aja is still my all time fav from them......As well one of the best recording productions, an amazing sounding record.

'Do it again' is just one (and there are many) that ooze an almost exotic (especially after a wet, grey UK winter!) honey sensation of sunshine and warm breezes.. but also the music and lyrics are so nuanced and crafted that although i dont listen to them that often, when i do hear a song it always puts me in a good place.

It's... interesting Steely Dan should come up.

I had to go deal with the driver's license bureaucracy today.

While I was waiting I listened to my Steely Dan playlist to keep me sweet dealing with the DMV.

Ricky Don't Lose that Number, FM, Deacon Blues, Peg... If you must waste time doing something unpleasant, it is better with Steely Dan.

Definitely. The production is so incredible that the album sounds like it could have come out yesterday 

Funny enough, apparently Donald Fagen also said something to that effect when he met Walter Becker. In his words: "I hear this guy practising, and it sounded very professional and contemporary. It sounded like, you know, like a black person, really."

Well, they did have the great Bernard Purdie on drums, Chuck Rainey on bass and even Wayne Shorter tearing it up on the title track.    But yeah, there is something distinct about Aja as compared to their previous albums.  The 'rock' aspect of their music is almost completely gone.  It's like a luxurious, languid (and bittersweet) amalgam of jazz, funk and soul. 

The first album of theirs I heard was Pretzel Logic.  I couldn't quite crack it at that time and the music did not seem to live up to the billing.  And then, a year later, somebody suggested Royal Scam and that did it.  And after that, I fell in love with Aja on first listen.  And pretty much every album from Countdown to Gaucho. I am still not too hot on Can't Buy A Thrill (Palmer's vocals don't help and maybe Do It Again is the only one that feels like classic Dan already) or the two albums they made after reuniting. But the streak in the middle...that's just astonishing.  One of the bands/artists that's eternally in my playlist alongside Stevie Wonder and...you're so going to love this ...Beatles!  But at this point, I like Steely more than either of them too.  I find their humorous cynicism very agreeable as it is how I cope with life and the general goings on as well. I know that meeting your favourite artists in person can often lead to acute disappointment and the age gap between me and any of these 60s/70s artists wouldn't help but I would still love to be able to meet Fagen one day.  It just feels like unlike so many other musicians of the time and especially in the prog rock or related space, he does not believe in magic of black or any other kind or has any messiah complex.  He comes across as very on the level...at least apparently (but one never truly knows!).

If I got a favorite Steely Dan song, it's got to be Your Gold Teeth. Love the lyrics although I rarely give actual song meaning much thought. I usually settle with the feel it provides from picking up some words and sentences here and there. A female gambler?... perhaps a gold digger - at a casino ... throwing your gold teeth on the table, see how they roll... She's all in? I don't know but diggin' the scenery. Dark, misantrophic and highly entertaining. And oh my god what a groove and arrangement. Pure jazz fusion heaven. Absolutely amazing. Still one of their least talked about/loved songs it seems.

I have a special relationship with Countdown To Ecstasy in general. While it's understandable that Aja is "everyone's" favorite (I love it too), I prefer the seemingly looser and more relaxed approach of their 1973-incarnation.

Also, I just realized that I never put my favorite SD song in my original comment. Personally I have to go with the funk/R&B stylings of Black Cow, although the title track of Aja gets a special shoutout for its ambition and complexity

If I must take two more, than the debut and Aja would be them

TBH, Pretzel, Kati and Gaucho are not really my thing. 

Steely Dan - Featuring Walter Becker & Donald Fagan

Steely Dan - A Decade of Steely Dan

Steely Dan - Aja

Donald Fagan - The Nightfly

Donald Fagan - Kamakiriad

There can't be any appreciation for this band, until you know what the name of the band refers to!

And how so much of the music doesn't even come close to the actual involvement of the "name".

Oh well ... just having fun with you guys. I don't have SD in my collection, but I can't say that it is not enjoyable stuff, except I'm tired of the first album that FM radio just trashed senselessly until you couldn't stand it anymore!

All good!

Either Pretzel Logic or Countdown is my favorite album(usually I can pick my definitive favorite of an artist, but not with these guys). In their early days they had a very unique pop-rock-y sound, and later on they had a very unique fusion sound. I've yet to hear something that truly sounds similar to anything they made from 1972-1980 (well, The Nightfly, and I've always kind of considered that their unofficial 8th album - no disrespect meant to mr. Becker of course). Especially towards the late 70's their chord progressions are very unpredictable in a fun way, if that makes any sense. Their two 00's albums are also not too shabby, though they are a bit formulaic.

Oh, and my favorite song's gotta be Any Major Dude Will Tell You.

Though I loved Aja and Gaucho, it took me a long time to warm up to Katy Lied and The Royal Scam.

Their sound production was always so great that I used to scour the news for any and all albums graced on the production side by Gary Katz, Walter Becker, and Donald Fagan. Also, many of the musicians who played on the band's albums were "names" that I gravitated to when looking at other new and old releases from the LA music scene, e.g. Sample, Feldman, Parks, Carlton, Omartian, Findlay, Tom Scott, Horn, Grolnick, Anthony Jackson, Steve Khan, the Breckers, Hiram Bullock, Bernard Purdie, Gadd, Porcaro, etc.

 

I think both Toto and Doobie Brothers (later, under Michael McDonald) resemble the Gaucho-era Steely Dan.  But I haven't heard anything from them that is like the Pretzel Logic-to-Royal Scam phase of Steely Dan, which is basically like putting vocals on top of jazz-fusion.  If anything, it is some songs of Stevie Wonder that resemble the Steely Dan sound but obviously, Wonder was coming at it from an R&B perspective.  

something is not right, here

How can you be in a college dorm in 2000/01 (this track is from Two Against Nature) and be a fan "since the beginning" in 1972/3?

You were born in 72 while listening to can't Buy A Thrill??

Or are you Reelin' in The Years ??

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: I like Steely Dan. I disagree with those who say nobody is like them. I hear similarities to Toto and the Doobie Brothers. Ok, maybe nobody is exactly like them but you could say that about a lot of bands.

no opinion about Toto sounding like SD, but for the Doobies, trouble started after the Dan broke up (as a touring band, anyways) when Skunk Baxter stunk up the band (Stampede) and later MMcD joined them for Streets. I know Skunk played on Vices, but he wasn't a member yet.

I stopped liking Doobies after What was once Vices....

moshkito wrote: Hi, There can't be any appreciation for this band, until you know what the name of the band refers to! And how so much of the music doesn't even come close to the actual involvement of the "name".

You calling yourself a dildo or you're just being a dork here, Pedro??

.

Hi,

Just a fun bit of humor that a lot of folks did not know about ... and the stories in the 80's about the little pipes going about, with so many girls laughing that the boys wouldn't even touch it. Such was life at UCSB at a lot of parties with SD playing in the background along with everything else.

I was already aware of the name, and thought it silly ... but it got a lot of attention, although I know folks that got off the band's wagon when they came to know what the name was about ... and read the book in a class at UCSB. Goodness ... the faces alone were a treat. And a lot of TA's and Professors thought that SD did not exactly gave the name a good vibe, as the book did for the writer. 

Some weirdness for you from the UCSB days in the late 70's and early 80's. And how so much of it, did not add up to its conceptual nature anymore ... it was all just a bunch of words now, meaningless and dork'd out by fans that were not interested in books in the first place. The dope was better!  BUT, THE MUSIC WAS VERY NICE and I will not put it down EVER.

Katy Lied is my personal favorite because of the songs themselves but Aja is a masterpiece of sound quality as mentioned by several here. After Aja and Guacho I was disappointed in the later lp's but even so they are well worth having.

  

Nice username 

As far as the band's later stuff goes, I was really surprised at how much I ended up loving Two Against Nature. It basically took their older material and added more fusion elements, which I definitely appreciate. Plus, the atmosphere is so chill and relaxing. Everything Must Go though? Probably my least favorite of their work. 

^ Yes they are some odd ducks...in the best way.   I've never fully grasped SD which is just how I like it, but The Royal Scam is what turned me from disinterested observer to fan.   They're often labelled 'jazz-rock' on Wiki which shows how uncategorizable and misunderstood they are.

Did you ever check out the making-of documentary for the album? It definitely provides a lot of insight into just how difficult the two were to work with, especially when it came to Peg. They went through about seven or eight guitarists (including Walter himself), and even Jay Graydon's iconic solo required about five or six takes before being accepted by the duo. Crazy stuff 

Funny enough, the title track - despite being the most complex song on the album - was the easiest and quickest one for the band to record

I discover SD around the year 2015 and i've a blast with their music. At that time i was a fan of Toto and I always hear interviews of Steve Lukater (or David Paich) praising Steely so the next step for me was sitting alone, put Aja and try to understand why that music is special and why all talks so good about them.

It' wasnt love at first listen but with every day it grows on me. "Deacon Blues" was one of my favorites of Aja, but when I listen to "Gaucho" it fits more with the music I was used to enjoy at that moment.

With repeated listens I find also that "The Royal Scam" it's a very good record too (the tracks "Kid Charlemagne" and "The Fez" stands out).

The solo records of Donald Fagen are excellent too, specially "The Nightfly" and "Kamikiriad". The later ones of SD and Fagen are similiar in his "laid-back" approach but all have good compositions and excellent musicianship (one of the strongest points of SD was his personnel: always has top-notch LA musicians).

I also read that they was obsessed to get records produced to the detail, so it make the music of SD more interesting: they had good songs, intelligent lyrics, the best musicians around and also the best production... all of this makes a perfect combo.

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: I like Steely Dan. I disagree with those who say nobody is like them. I hear similarities to Toto and the Doobie Brothers. Ok, maybe nobody is exactly like them but you could say that about a lot of bands.

I've never really been able to come up with a good genre label for their first 4-5 albums. Aja onwards is Fusion, but their earlier stuff is hard to label. Maybe Art Rock if you take that as meaning prog-lite, or perhaps Soft Rock... I've just stuck it all under Jazz Fusion in iTunes for lack of a better term. Curious to see what other people would say.

I definitely agree there. I can't tell you how many people have told me that Chicago's early work was similar to Steely Dan, but Chicago have never scratched the itch that SD have for me

Wow, this almost sounds like a lost Royal Scam sessions track.  The first time I have found something truly SD like.

I think the reason why Chicago, Doobie Bros, Toto never evoked Dan for me is Dan is the musical equivalent of reading Catch22 or Art Buchwald.  They have that sharp, pungent brand of humour which ensures they are never at risk of sounding too earnest and a laugh is always just around the corner.

I haven't read the lyrics of this Pages track but they do have the SD sound down pat. "Well crafted pop and jazz fusion sound" is exactly like SD.

^It does, doesn't it? I'm quite a fan really. As for their lyrics, they are adequate but nowhere near the level of SD. Far from bad though. I suppose Steely Dan belongs to an exclusive group of "rockers" not indebted to the romantic era (post Dirty Work). There you'll find tongue in cheek, sophisticated, intellectual and cynical pranksters such as Sparks, 10CC and probably Zappa... well and The Residents and other experimental acts. But I feel Steely Dan are still in a league of their own.

Btw: I have a feeling you'd enjoy Michael Franks. If you don't know him already, I'd suggest you'd start with The Art Of Tea and take it from there. He's like a clever, lightly jazzfusioned-version of Paul Simon. Maybe. Always with the best session musicians in town. We're talking Michael Brecker, David Sanborn, Larry Bunker, Larry Carlton, John Guerin, Steve Gadd, Dave Liebman, Kenny Barron, Mike Mainieri, Randy Brecker, Ron Carter, Eric Gale, Eddie Gómez etc.. on every album.

Thanks, I will check out Michael Franks.  How good are Steve Khan's albums, if you have heard them?  I came across a wonderful, if partly caustic, interview of his time working with Steely Dan on Peg.

http://www.stevekhan.com/aja_steelydan_reflections.htm" rel="nofollow - http://www.stevekhan.com/aja_steelydan_reflections.htm

I do love Sparks a LOT, but yeah, totally different band from Steely Dan.  Zappa, Residents are way more experimental.  Steely Dan is in this sweet spot where their music is outwardly very accessible almost to the point of sounding generic (which is why I didn't see the fuss about them in the beginning) but is informed by lots and lots of interesting chord choices and the most magnificent collection of guitar solos in a single band's discography, and the lyrics then bring their own pungent flavour.  In totality, I haven't heard that combination in a single band's work, indeed in their general style.  A band or artist might have some songs that conform somewhat to that combination.  The closest I can think of is actually Fiona Apple rather than any rock band, particularly on the When The Pawn album.  But she can get very nasty with the lyrics, lol, while Dan is more about killing you softly.  But otherwise, yes, the combination of music loosely connected to jazz that sounds very typically American such that you might go meh if you don't pay attention but is actually informed by very thoughtful songwriting and bold choices.

The Zappa comparison makes a lot of sense, as Donald Fagen once said that Zappa was one of the biggest comedic influences on Steely Dan's writing:  http://nymag.com/arts/popmusic/profiles/16453/#sthash.NzmzmG1v.dpuf" rel="nofollow - https://nymag.com/arts/popmusic/profiles/16453/#sthash.NzmzmG1v.dpuf

Also, anyone who likes the later SD albums should definitely check out Donald Fagen's Nightfly album. It's good relaxing music (as is Gaucho). 

Here's more of his Steely-adjacent basement-prog/fusion:

https://tredicibacci.bandcamp.com/track/gary-saw-linda-last-night" rel="nofollow - https://tredicibacci.bandcamp.com/track/gary-saw-linda-last-night

You can say that about a lot of bands, some of which no longer even have any of the original members. I say let em tour, what the hell. Still, it would be best to see SD with Becker. 

Royals Scam is great. That and Aja is peak Steely Dan for me

One of my favorites. Saw them 4 times in 3 states.

"Don't Take Me Alive" is my favorite song... But I'd check out The Lost Gaucho Tapes, which has

-Kind Spirit (one of my favs)

-The Bear

Singin' with attitude.... One of my last bands played mostly Steely Dan (22 out of 30 songs live)

There are no duffer Dan albums or tracks - it's all gold.  I don't put them on much anymore - I played all the albums, even the post-reunion ones, way too many times.  I'm not putting them on leading up to the show 'cause I want them to be as fresh to the ear as possible.