Steely Dan appreciation
Printed From: Progarchives.com
Category: Progressive Music Lounges
Forum Name: Prog Bands, Artists and Genres Appreciation
Forum Description: Discuss specific prog bands and their members or a specific sub-genre
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=67592
Printed Date: August 09 2025 at 07:25
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Topic: Steely Dan appreciation
Posted By: rogerthat
Subject: Steely Dan appreciation
Date Posted: May 21 2010 at 12:04
Recently got into this band in a big way. Picked up Aja almost blind (didn't even know if it was the best place to start), and after a lot of drooling over it  revisited Pretzel Logic which I had heard a long time back but hadn't been blown away and so on and so forth. I think they are going to be one of my all time favourite bands easy. Aja is my favourite so far but also really love Royal Scam and Countdown to Ecstacy. Katy Lied and Pretzel Logic a little behind, followed by Gaucho and Can't Buy A Thrill which have their flaws but are still worthy. I don't know how prog or not they are and I am not going to rekindle an old debate because I really don't care about it, few bands are so perfect for my tastes as Steely Dan. What do YOU think?
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Replies:
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: May 21 2010 at 12:16
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Yeah, I didn't pay much attention to these guys though they were well regarded amongst prog fans I knew. What made them finally click for me was when I got the box set of their '70's stuff. I like their new albums, too but it's hard to top the old stuff.
------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened... 
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Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: May 21 2010 at 12:19
| Haven't got to Everything Must Go yet but I quite liked Two Against Nature. No real changes to their style and yet doesn't sound pale or stagnant...strange, that, lots of old bands go either of those two ways, Steely Dan simply carried on where they had left all those years back. But yeah, doesn't top the old stuff. not nearly. |
Posted By: Ronnie Pilgrim
Date Posted: May 21 2010 at 13:11
| I'm all in! Steely Dan is my favorite band, prog or not. They have "progressed" through time, and I love material from their first album as much as material from their latest one (and all points in between). |
Posted By: chopper
Date Posted: May 21 2010 at 16:50
| Only really got into them recently as the band I'm in do a few of their numbers. They're great to play, some of the chord structures they use are just wonderful. I reckon the middle period was probably their best - Kid Charlemagne and Haitian Divorce. |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: May 21 2010 at 20:14
Yeah, wonderful chord sequences even on their simpler songs like Peg. Kid Charlemagne is simply amazing, especially the massive change right after the chorus. Green Earrings from the same album too, with its three ripping solos.
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Posted By: lucas
Date Posted: May 22 2010 at 15:11
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Elegant mixture of pop and jazz. I discovered them through 'royal scam'. A lot of great musicians played with them (and often jazz-related) : Bernard Purdie, Rick Marotta, Larry Carlton, Steve Gadd, Jim Keltner, Jeff Porcaro, David Paich, Joe Sample, Chuck Rainey, Rick Derringer, Dean Parks, Tom Scott. Donald Fagen released threee excellent solo albums after they disbanded. ------------- "Magma was the very first gothic rock band" (Didier Lockwood) |
Posted By: Ronnie Pilgrim
Date Posted: May 22 2010 at 15:15
I've heard it said that they are musician's musicians.
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lucas wrote:Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: May 22 2010 at 22:10
Porcaro has talked about how hard Fagen and Becker made them work just to get a drum track right for Gaucho. Funny the album itself didn't seem to justify that much effort and perfectionism though it was a good album again from SD. |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: May 23 2010 at 05:10
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The first DVD I purchased:
Not making it up. ------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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Posted By: O666
Date Posted: May 24 2010 at 14:05
| I wrote about SD sub-gen and i think Jazz rock/fusion is good for this great band. I love 2 first albums and AJA is special for me. I listen fagen and becker solo albums and i think if they join then they can release more better stuff. |
Posted By: pied piper
Date Posted: May 25 2010 at 03:58
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I do love the band: I still remember the first time I heard "Do it again", in 1973.
I was disappointed when they disbanded, and I loved Fagen's "Nightfly". I was very glad when they regrouped! I had been lucky to see them on stage, while touring Italy: superb music, extraordinary musicians. Of course it's no progressive, but I'm used to listen to many genres.
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Posted By: The Runaway
Date Posted: May 25 2010 at 05:15
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I am in LOVE with their first time.
------------- http://www.formspring.me/Aragorn224" rel="nofollow - Trendsetter win! The search for nonexistent perfection. |
Posted By: HolyMoly
Date Posted: May 25 2010 at 11:25
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Pretty great band. My father was a pretty big fan in the 70s so I was very familiar with all their albums even way back then, and I still listen to them now. I've never thought "Can't Buy a Thrill" was all that great, except for the godlike track "Do it Again". But otherwise, all the albums through Gaucho are great. My personal favorite is either "Countdown to Ecstasy" or "Royal Scam" - endlessly complex and entertaining, both of them. Fagen's first solo album "Nightfly" is quite neat too - a real original sounding 50s/80s hybrid, very alluring.
I got "Two Against Nature" when it came out, but something essential seemed to be missing. It seemed to have all the style but none of the substance of Steely Dan. Granted, by the time of Gaucho, their sound had already begun to get more homogenized, but there were still interesting compositional quirks or unexpected happenings in the songs here and there. Two Against Nature just sounds like warm milk - smooth and bland. I haven't bothered to try "Everything Must Go", but I don't have my hopes up. ------------- My other avatar is a Porsche It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased. -Kehlog Albran |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: May 25 2010 at 11:26
Yeah, I love Nightfly too, lovely jazz pop  , couldn't believe it was that a**h*** singing so earnestly and, at places, tenderly, actually. |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: May 25 2010 at 11:30
| I think Countdown is the most prog-compatible of their albums. After that, Aja for the two big jazz fusion-ish tracks and then Royal Scam has an APP rocking much harder than usual feeling. |
Posted By: Ronnie Pilgrim
Date Posted: May 25 2010 at 11:42
I suggest you try smoking a good bowl, kicking back and enjoying the note by note perfection that is "What a Shame About Me."
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Posted By: The Quiet One
Date Posted: May 25 2010 at 11:44
All of you fans, check out this album:
 You won't regret it, it's great.
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Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: May 25 2010 at 11:46
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Have been meaning to get to that. How about the one in the middle...something starting with K?
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Posted By: Norman Kiddie
Date Posted: May 25 2010 at 12:03
 Steely Dan are one of the best bands on the planet. Check out Donald Fagan and Walter Becker solo projects and albums created as a duo. They retain a lot of the typical Steely Dan sound, and are timeless additions to any collection.
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Posted By: valravennz
Date Posted: May 28 2010 at 23:14
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Steely Dan have always been one of my favourite bands and rightly belong in PA. I love the coolness of their jazz style rock. Donald Fagan's "The Night Fly" is also a great solo effort. "AJA" is probably my favourite album with it's smooth and yet complex jazz rhythms overlaid with memorable and simplistic tonal qualities. ------------- 
"Music is the Wine that fills the cup of Silence" - Robert Fripp |
Posted By: KyleSchmidlin
Date Posted: August 02 2010 at 00:35
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I'm a bit late to this discussion. It seems Steely Dan have been moved to Jazz Rock / Fusion since it began. But I agree with the other assessments. They are better placed in Crossover. As so many have pointed out, they are maybe prog's perfect representatives of Crossover, maybe even better than, say, Peter Gabriel. They have the outsider, buck-the-convention attitude of a prog band, but with scores of pop hits and ear-friendly melodies to ensure their appeal to mainstream America. But the beauty is, the people who listen to them for the pop hits and ear-friendly melodies are missing the point entirely. Supposedly Rolling Stone called them the perfect musical antiheroes of the 70s, and that seems right. They don't belong entirely to prog, that's for sure; but if you fail to acknowledge that there is something more going on in their music than anybody alongside of whom they are played on the radio, you've got it wrong. |
Posted By: Rabid
Date Posted: August 02 2010 at 01:50
Kamakiriad - Good album ------------- "...the thing IS, to put a motor in yourself..." |
Posted By: rushfan4
Date Posted: September 18 2012 at 16:19
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Donald Fagen is releasing a new album titled Sunken Condos on October 16th. Here is an article and a link to listen to one of the songs. http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/song-premiere-donald-fagen-im-not-the-same-without-you-20120917?link=mostpopular2" rel="nofollow - http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/song-premiere-donald-fagen-im-not-the-same-without-you-20120917?link=mostpopular2 ------------- 
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Posted By: hobocamp
Date Posted: September 18 2012 at 17:26
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I'd place the song Aja against any other as the quintessential prog masterpiece.
But I don't think the genre encapsulates all that they are. |
Posted By: KingCrInuYasha
Date Posted: September 18 2012 at 22:50
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One of my favorite artists of all time. Along with the Beatles, I think I've known their work for all of my life, thanks in part to my parents playing them whenever my family went on a road trip. Also, Donald Fagen is probably the best lyricist of the 1970s, at least in my book. ------------- He looks at this world and wants it all... so he strikes, like Thunderball! |
Posted By: irrelevant
Date Posted: September 19 2012 at 00:36
It's got some great tracks that one. ------------- https://gabebuller.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow - New album! http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=7385" rel="nofollow - http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=7385 |
Posted By: irrelevant
Date Posted: September 19 2012 at 00:39
Agreed, I still think it's an ok album with some good songs. Everything Must Go is about on the same level. ------------- https://gabebuller.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow - New album! http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=7385" rel="nofollow - http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=7385 |
Posted By: HolyMoly
Date Posted: September 19 2012 at 06:17
------------- My other avatar is a Porsche It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased. -Kehlog Albran |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: September 26 2012 at 15:53
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Hi, I would suggest that because this band was such a pop/hit band that too many folks will say/think that this is not progressive. It is progressive in that it was not afraid to stretch the pop medium ... but it was STILL, mostly pop music and just "songs". In general, I am not 100% sure that "progressive" is ... just a bunch of songs. Or that it should be, btw! Because at that point the distinction between pop music, and progressive music is lost and gone! But their material, just like Queen's, or 10CC's (for example) is, for all intents and purposes, very progressive. And many times much more so, than some copykat bands that call themselves "progressive".
------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |