Have you had a Steely Dan phase?

I am in the midst of mine. It began back in 1996. I was thrilled to learn there are some serious heads in these parts.

A way of life then? An admission of some sort?

If not a phase, what then??

Hstencil makes Bard sound like Led Zep material.

Here's a heretical thought: Would the Dan have been even better if they'd continued to function as a "real" band after Countdown to Ecstasy? Though Fagen and Becker seemed to be much happier as a studio outfit on a personal level, and they continued to do great work, doesn't CtE have a certain energy and organic feeling that the later albums lack? And wouldn't the great songs on the later albums have been improved by that energy? Or am I full of it, and the smooth polish of the studio hired guns outweighed any benefit of maintaining a regular band lineup?

willyouwontyouwillyouwontyouwontyoujointhedance

Hey now, the outro to "Third World Man" is bliss itself, man! The second half is better than the first, IMO.

Pretzel Logic and about half of Aja are all I ever listen to now - and even those probably not for about a year. I've never heard Gaucho and I think it'll be a long time before I get around to it, I'm definitely out of the first phase.

However I'm often tempted to outlay the $5 or so for 'The Nightfly' just because the cover's cool and has a great atmosphere. I am probably more likely to get that than any more SD stuff for the time being.

paula = my aunt, yixfdb = uncle

Age and experience tend to broaden horizons. While I don't own any Steely Dan records, they don't inspire the ire in me they used to. I warmed to them when I learned they were cantankerous bastards filled with contempt for just about everyone, and I like some solo Donald Fagen stuff. It's still music for wine & cheese afficianados who wear patches on the elbows of their corduroy blazers, but hey.....it's better than a lot of the crap curently being touted as "genius" today.

I have honestly lost all respect for you Alex

it probably says something about me that i can't decide on a reaction to this.

-- Alex in NYC (vassife...) (webmail), June 4th, 2004 8:30 PM. (vassifer) (later) (link)

that's where the blazers and wine and cheese and steely dan come in!

I'd say they were filled with an *unhealthy* amount of same....
a near poisonous level infact. You've *got* to check out
"The Royal Scam"
"Countdown to Ecstasy"
"Can't Buy a Thrill"
"Gaucho"
"Katy Lied"
and then I'm sure you'll agree. Fagen's voice has as much contempt
in it as John Lydon's (these comparisms are a bit silly, but whatevah)

DB and Ned in 'permanent Steely Dan phase' non-shock (Donna in trouble for posting pics w/out asking, whoops)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdcuHtSb-hI

Was there ever much/any talk about this 'legendary' lost/ unreleased track from the Gaucho sessions?
Unlike many/ most 'legendary' lost traks this is really brilliant.

what about this pre SD track. starts off like neu and ends up like csny

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pXZ1-GCpIE

lol I'm having a Steely Dan phase RIGHT NOW

"Second Arrangement" is great, we've talked about it on 2 or 3 different threads iirc. i like it better than pretty much any song on Gaucho except "Babylon Sisters," although i'm not the biggest fan of that album to begin with. my other favorite non-album SD song is "This All Too Mobile Home" -- it would be so great if they ever got over their perfectionism enough to do an official compilation of outtakes and rarities.

i did when i was 20. my uncle who loves brian eno told me that steely dan was his favorite band of all time, so i bought countdown to ecstasy and paid more attention to aja and pretzel logic and cant buy a thrill whenever i heard them. i still feel warmly towards a bunch of dan songs...

― peter smith (plsmith), Friday, June 4, 2004 12:38 PM (6 years ago) Bookmark

one of my first posts!

now i agree w stencil; it's not a phase.

the 33 and a 3rd book about AJA is good innit? i don't like how anti-pop the guy appears to be but hey.

yeah Gaucho sounds like a rubbish-y Nightfly. even Don n Walt don't fancy it much. i like Second Arrangement better than anything on it except Glamour Profession.

i have not! though since I listened to so much classic rock radio in high school, I feel like I averted it through steady, unsolicited exposure (similar to Pink Floyd)

oh yeah the 33 1/3 on Aja is fantastic, easily one of my 2 or 3 favorite books in the series.

you would like both floyd and dan and should have simultaneous phases, dominique.
gaucho is prob the worst original dan album, but it is pretty fucking good, let's be real.

my Steely Dan phase is called "adulthood"

Thanks, thread, for reminding me what I really needed today was "Home At Last".

do you think i'd get sued if i started a band called Steely Dan Phase?

JEESUS YOU SAVAGES I THOUGHT WE'D KILLED AND COOKED THIS CANARD THAT GAUCHO IS NOT FABULOUS

totally surprised you've never had a Dan phase Dom!

never and never plan to.

my Steely Dan phase is called "adulthood"

― underrated bobos I have honked (some dude), Wednesday, October 20, 2010

^^^ this.

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/photos/profile/steely_dan.jpg
this is what being an adult feels like

Still in it, thanks.

my Steely Dan phase is called "adulthood"

Subtle "Wire" allusion.

not on purpose! i just mean even though i heard and enjoyed a lot SD growing up, it wasn't until after high school that i started owning and worshipping all the albums.

so pissed I missed the Fagan-McDonald-Boz Scaggs superband set at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass this year

YAMO BETHERE

I had in mind my favorite McNutty and Bunk exchange.

I still can't listen to the second side of Gaucho w/out curling up into a sandbox like the guy in "Third World Man."

in re Gaucho:

"Babylon Sisters" – 5:49 A-/B+
"Hey Nineteen" – 5:06 B- I think though I would have B+'d it during the initial heat of SD obsession
"Glamour Profession" – 7:28 B+, would be in A range w/o the lines "illegal fun/under the sun"
"Gaucho" – 5:30 A+, all-time Dan track
"Time Out of Mind" – 4:11 A+, perfect in every way
"My Rival" – 4:30 - B- and that's kinda generous. Great vocal performance but the track doesn't really do it for me
"Third World Man" – 5:18 - A- - moments of great poignancy; always sounds better than I think it's going to

this is a low average for a Steely Dan album (given that Aja is all A's and A+'s, Katy Lied has a ridic. high average, Countdown to Ecstasy is all A's & A+'s, etc) but three flat-out incredible songs on a 7-song album is not bad

"illegal fun/under the sun" is a pretty funny line though. makes me laugh anyway.

time out of mind is just the best

The phrasing on "Gaucho" is killer. He's one of the few vocalists who can bring off contempt and poignancy.

Pretty much right there w/aero on Gaucho but I might like it even more than he does - I love how every song on it could be a short story. "Third World Man" is such a heart-crushing way to end an album (and then disappear for over a decade)...

Wonder if Gaucho skeptics like Christgau have changed their minds. Clearly that iteration of SD upset their expectations; his own reviews of the era's studio-rock indicate cautious approval at best (e.g. Boz Scaggs, Doobies).

"Third World Man" is just killing me right now: these are big days here on the Euler ranch so I am constantly on the emo edge but that solo, the one in the middle of the song, I wince at how beautiful it is, can't begin to write what it says but I think you all feel me on this one.

^^ I'm not going to post the same shit I always do about what's likely my favorite SD track.

Twice: in high school, when I first bought their albums, and again in my early '30s, when I reconnected with those years.

Maybe this joke was made already but shouldn't "Steely Dan phase" basically be the board description for ILM?

i disagree w/ aerosmith on "hey 1" (solid A for me), but i like his Gaucho ratings. it took me a while to appreciate it, especially since it is, to my mind, so easy to compare/ contrast with all time perfection i.e., Aja. everything else they did in the 70s i glommed onto pretty hardcore in college, but it took about 10 more years to get to Gaucho. it's a little cold & clinical (even for SD), but undeniable.

"hey 19"

Actually, "phase" kind of diminishes how much I've always loved my favourite songs by them. I just mean that that's when I would play full album sides: "Rikki" and "Pretzel Logic" and some other songs always loom large.

Its funny, Steely Dan is the one thing I listen to that my wife absolutely cannot stand to hear. She may make me put onj headphones when I listen to a lot of metal (she doesn't like hearing "aggressive" music when she is concentrating on something else - fair enough) but she will listen to it with me sometimes. The Dan, however, isntantly gets the scrunchy face and a "really?". I don't get it.

girls/women hate the Dan

this is well established. my wife is cool with metal (actually she LOVES metal), a lot of hip hop, tons of classic rock (I can't stand AC/DC or Rush, she loves both), but Steely Dan makes her climb the walls.

in my experience a lot of non-fans are initially turned off/ annoyed by fagen's voice, and lots of music "snobs" (who don't while away the hours on ilm) think they're corny

(not that this describes your respective wives)

i think the Dan love is what initially brought me to ilm

http://m.assetbar.com/uua3RJZcv.gif

did not expect my morning to be ruined by all this gaucho hate. wtf are you guys on about. now aja, on the other hand, is the take it or leave it dan album.

Aw man Shakey normally (based on offhand comments) I think I am in "Shakey's wife's music" camp but I love Steely Dan, for better or for worse.

aja, on the other hand, is the take it or leave it dan album.

closest I have ever come to s-b'ing somebody just because I disagreed with their opinion of an album

My Steely Dan phase will never end. Long live smooth music..... ;)

I checked out a good portion of the Steely Dan catalog through Rhapsody, and I was amazed how many songs I knew by heart just by working in a supermarket all through high school until I graduated college. I swear I was familiar with about 70% of their songs! I must have heard 12-15 Steely Dan songs in a given 8 hour work day. We're talking something like 20,000 spins of a Steely Dan/Donald Fagan song in my eight years working at this supermarket, lol.

Sadly, familiarity to their catalog hasn't made me a fan of theirs yet. Maybe one day.

Hello.

I have never had a Steely Dan phase. Although I quite liked when Haitian Divorce was on the radio back when it was a hit single.

OK, thanks.

Bye.

royal scam is my take it or leave it dan alb (of the original seven), haitian divorce is p close to my least fave dan song, the cover is kinda horrible and the 2nd side is prob their weakest batch of tunes - still a gd alb tho!

totes agree w aero rating the title track of gaucha an A+ - "bodacious cowboys, such as your friend, will never be welcome here" is an all-time dan lyric for me

Fagen and the backup singers figure out the perfect way to sing it too.

my wife hates steely dan too

Hm. What is it with the dames and Becker-Fagen?

my boyfriend hates SD. wtf sexual partners!

gd point abt the backing singers alfred, becker/fagan always pick + use them and write for them v well - iirc it's the amazing valerie simpson (amongst others) singing back-up on the gaucho alb

I love the Dan, I have the box set and everything, and my husband gets cranky at about 95% of their stuff. Are we living in the Twilight Zone or some shit?

hmmmmmm maybe there are exceptions to this phenomenon

there are lots of bands with primarily male fanbases but i don't know if there are any that it's worth generalizing that women hate them. even Rush.

maybe... dream theater? lol

"Deacon Blues" is my karaoke standard/

Ok Dream theater sucks.

This thread makes me want to enter my Steely Dan phase.

i think if you went to a steely dan concert you'd see plenty of ladies. a girl i used to work with was psyched about seeing them.

A woman I used to work with liked them so much, she named her son Steely - true story! O_O

Felt bad telling her where they got their name from :(

Naw, it's ok – I named my son Interzone and only later discovered where it came from. You get used to it!

Felt bad telling her where they got their name from :(

lol

naming next kid Dr. Benway

so what you're saying is that naming my first child "Shocker Taint" would be a bad idea

My boss' younger sister in my job during college was a HUGE steely dan fan, we spent a whole weekend listening to the Dan discography on repeat when she was visiting from NYC.

That said, I have YET to have a Dan phase, which I am totally cooling with. I have 3 MP3s on my phone: "FM", "Peg" and "Deacon Blues". I had the FM OST when I was in my 20s but that don't count.

some crazy talk around here wrt Gaucho - easily my fave of theirs

also: Why do people rag on Steely Dan's "Gaucho" so much?

really deep phase atm

18 years old, thanks to Napster/Limewire - Rikki Don't Lose That Number, Do It Again, Reelin' in the Years in glorious 128 kbps mp3

My mother liked Steely Dan when I was 10 or 11, and I listened to "Aja" a ton cause she had it on 8 track. So that's my phase, I suppose. I don't despise The Dan like some do but I'd never buy anything either.

Bought Pretzel Logic 2nd hand a few years ago but only started listening to it last year. Bought Countdown to Ecstacy, Katy Lied and The Royal Scam 2nd hand (great copies, too) on a holiday trip last week - I'm about to enter my Steely Dan phase.

my Steely Dan phase is called "adulthood"

― underrated bobos I have honked (some dude)

otm