Supertramp/Steely Dan Again: Try Again/Do It Again

Try Again is a good summation imo of why Supertramp didn't often foray into prog and usually didn't achieve much success with it. It isn't just about the length, right?  There need to be interesting changes going on.  I thought this was harmonically and texturally pretty boring and when a straight up Brandenburg Concerto quote came long, I got pretty pissed off.   And unlike Genesis, they don't go all out proggy. They are trying to keep up some rock-like momentum here, for instance.  But all it does is rob the song of the stop/start, soft/loud/everything else in between dynamics that make prog interesting.  Interestingly, they achieved all these qualities operating in a traditional verse/chorus format on Crime of the Century. I would say in some ways Crime...anticipated Wall, you know Floyd with heavier and more menacing riffs but the contrasts Supertramp achieved in songs like Asylum or Rudy, especially by playing off the different styles of their vocalists, were even more interesting than on Wall.  

But back to this song, no, for me, it doesn't stand a chance against the iconic Do It Again.  However, for anybody actually wanting to get into Steely Dan, I would say ignore the mainstream consensus in favour of Can't Buy A Thrill and go for Royal Scam.  Or Pretzel Logic.  For me, Steely Dan really starts in right earnest with Countdown to Ecstasy and Pretzel is the first quintessential Dan album.

Katy Lied however will forever be my favorite Dan album...

Exactly so I voted Steely Dan this round 

To be fair, the so called 'pop' of 90125 was still essentially AOR territory and maybe somewhat more palatable for prog rock fans for that reason.  The same way that prog fans put up with Asia.  Genesis had a pop element in the manner of say Beatles from the beginning but they jumped headlong into 80s dance pop and that split their fanbase (but also gaining many more new fans for them).  Not unlike Metallica going curdy from Black Album onwards (and especially so with Load).  After the even more ambitious and technical And Justice After All (vis a vis MOP), Black was the last thing fans would have expected from Metallica.

Sure, I am just saying Yes not jumping so far into the most absurd and annoying manifestations of 80s music made it easier for fans to embrace 90125.  Plus, Yes line up changes were so frequent it quickly ceased to become a divisive issue.  For Genesis, the loss of first Gabriel and then Hackett both turned older fans away from the band and continues to this day to be a dividing line for people who get into Genesis today.  I too don't have much interest in what happened from And Then There Were Three.  But it's more of indifference rather than a strong dislike.

I would agree that Hackett was able to express himself better solo than with Genesis but his presence at least offered something of aesthetic appeal (I would say value but that would be too strident an assessment ).  True that musically the band was all Banks but he didn't know how to get out of the way either because his own playing was functionally good and rarely more than that.