POLL: Best Steely Dan album

Gaucho

Picking "Aja" here, but "Gaucho" is great too.

Yet, "The Nighfly" is even better than any of them.

Difficult, but going with Countdown to Ecstasy

I could swear I already voted for Katy Lied--two months ago.

I searched for a Steely Dan poll, couldn't find one. Apologies if this has been done before.

Bollocks, you're right, here it is:

Best Steely Dan/Donald Fagen/Walter Becker Album

Although that one is for Becker & Fagin solo albums as well, so there's less choice here.

Somehow I must have missed that earlier poll. Tough choice : it's between Countdown and Scam for me.

Anyway, to go back to the initial question, the 'Best of' shoudl give you a pretty clear idea of which SD period you prefer, no? The rockier beginnings or the smoother afterglow.

Holy shit, I can't believe this poll didn't happen 'til now. The punchy pop of <i>Countdown</i> just barely wrestled the title from <i>Royal Scam</i>'s sleazy disco jaws...

Maybe teaching myself "My Old School" on the piano this morning had something to do with it...

Grrr BBcode

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

AAAARGGGH! There are tracks I love off of each one.

pretzel logic, but you've caught me at a bad time. i've recently been coming down off of my steely dan obsession ans don't see myself listening to them for a couple of months.

can't buy a thrill, for me no doubt, though most everyone who cares disagrees

Pretzel Logic now and always.

C'mon we already did this poll. Gaucho won. Go home, people.

That other poll also included solo albums - NOT THE SAME THING AT ALL. But seriously though, I missed the other poll, so this gives me a chance to vote.

Besides, Katy Lied won the other poll, which is clearly a miscarriage of justice that must be redressed.

Royal Scam -- "sleazy disco jaws" is OTM. It catches them at this perfect moment between their boho roots that apexed w Katy and their Ramada Inn bar later sound. And the tunes are aces.

Countdown to Ecstasy vs. Katy Lied vs. Aja? Countdown to Ecstasy for me.

their Ramada Inn bar later sound

Hahaha, OTM back at you

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

amazing.

the split is amazing. to vegas with these odds = everybody wins (well, except for those who hold out for the later work). i voted for countdown to ecstasy.

I would have voted for The Royal Scam.

hanging chads

It seems most of those who voted for "Gaucho" last time around didn't bother this time.

After TAN bored me several years ago, I am shocked to discover EMG last week and to love it: "Godwhacker," "Pixaleen," the title track," "Lunch with Gina." Tight live arrangements that don't sound antiseptic.

i love how there's an almost perfectly equal spread among the first 7 albums. probably the greatest run since the Beatles imo.

I'm amazed "Kid Charlemagne" is regarded well enough to buoy The Royal Scam into second place.

a) Royal Scam is tied for first, b) it's my and lots of people's favorite and c) if any album is buoyed by the single it's Pretzel Logic

^^What he said.

oh right: I forgot you guys bought the stuff that Kid Charlemagne sells.

he deals clavinets and talkboxes?

i mean i don't go talking about how funky and dynamic my favorite LP is compared to your beloved washed out lethargic Gaucho oh wait

Please do! Szechuan DUMPLINGS! at Mister Chow's when our deal is done.

lol that autoreplace never gets old

I underrate The Royal Scam routinely - when I look at the tracklisting, the strongest songs are some JAMS: "Kid Charlemagne" of course, "Green Earrings" is an easy all-timer & one of their best grooves, title track is unbelievable in every way, "Don't Take Me Alive" is a classic...but "Everything You Did" is imo one of their weakest songs & the Fez is fine but I could live fine without it. Katy Lied is superior imo

the title track is a vaporous nothing and "The Fez" actively annoys me but you're OTM about KL.

Alfred what the hell, you're a Stevens man aren't you?

And they wandered in from the city of St. John without a dime.
wearing coats that shined both red and green,
colors from their sunny island.

come on now man we can go right down through that song there is nothing for a poetry man not to love in it

except "shined" in place of "shone" but what can you do some of this shit you have to live with if you listen to rock music

WHERE THEY LEARN TO FEAR AN ANGRY RACE OF FALLEN KINGS, THEIR DARK COMPANIONS

"Haitian Divorce," man! fuckin' "Caves of Altamira"

yeah but "dime" "shined" "island"....binds the language together better I think....or maybe we cd pretend it's "shine" which I've always heard & which kinda works given my shaky advanced grammar?

ps--am i supposed to write "xpost" whenever anybody overlaps me even if there's no likely confusion?

sure but Stevens had music. "The Royal Scam" (the song) is words on a page.

I could never really get down with "Haitian Divorce" for the very silly reason that when I bought this album I was in the middle of my first big Steely Dan obsession and I had a lot of expectations for a title like that, which the song did not fulfill.

xp "shined" is the wrong word there and if that foils an internal rhyme hope for the author then he needs to rewrite the line. I am very merciless about this kind of thing

"Don't Take Me Alive" is cool -- it's made a couple mix CD-R. The talk box on "Haitian Divorce" is the aural equivalent of Bud and coke at 5 a.m.

Alfred I ain't buyin this on that song. "How they are paid in gold just to babble in the back room and waste the time/and they wandered in from the city of St John without a dime" as the seal-it-up couplet closing a very tightly-told story? musically I guess the song isn't on Aja/Katy levels but it's full of so much that makes Fagen great

the way the talkbox does call-and-response with the marimba (i think? or xylophone?) is so heavenly

yeah I can't really get w/that, I don't hate but it's sorta doesn't speak to me. the talkbox. doesn't ~speak~ to me are you feeling me here, I am bringing the good jokes

"Don't Take Me Alive" is one of the only SD songs that comes across as kind of cheesy to me. it's good but i'd never opt to listen to it outside the album.

He1geson has said that Zep:Presence::Dan:Royal Scam a few times on ILM over the years and no one seems to have ever backed him up on it so I would just like to say ftr that he is 100% correct.

i dig both albums more than the average fan but i'm not really seeing any meaningful parallels off the bat, will have to check out how he explained it

Just go with me on this and we can do the whole New Jersey thing all over again.

lol

Ha ha I am otm though, and royal scam kills gaucho

any one of the OG 7 steely dan albums might be my favorite, entirely dependent upon my mood or the weather or w/e.

long as we're talking about lyrics "don't take me alive" contains my favorite steely dan lyric

i hear my inside
the mechanized hum of another world

yeah the writing on "don't take me alive" is p fuckin spectacular & the harmonies on the chorus are really something

Totally feeling the "Presence" = "Royal Scam" thing. ("Gaucho" = "In Throught the Out Door")

I nominate "Haitian Divorce" for best use of a talkbox in any song ever - it's so fucking seedy, like the unmentioned philanderer who drives the marriage apart or something. I'm just beginning to appreciate the Royal Scam, and I no longer have any clear idea of my favorite Dan record - just say that through Gaucho I love them all.

Gaucho is so much better than In Through The Out Door in both relative (to the respective catalogs) and absolute terms

Gaucho's where they completely throw rock out the window, like "this shit is even more bankrupt than the soul of the narrator in Babylon Sisters", it's such an angry record to my mind, like "fuck you America of 1980, cheesy smoothness is all you deserve"

motherfuckers act like they forgot about BAD SNEAKERS

Gaucho is so much better than In Through The Out Door in both relative (to the respective catalogs) and absolute terms

― look at this quarterstaff (Hurting 2), Wednesday, September 5, 2012 4:19 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

"Babylon Sisters" and "Fool In The Rain" have two of the most sublime shuffle beats ever

I wish I enjoyed the 33 1/3 book on Aja more. They should have done one on Gaucho, or Katy Lied. Most to chew on

this shit is crazy. i love all the first 7 like children, but if i were to pick the two i listen two least? PL & RS

listen to

Yep, this is pretty much the toughest question ever asked on ILX.

whenever I doubt Gaucho I play "Third World Man." Then the title track. Then "Hey Nineteen." Then I say fuck it and play the rest.

I think Pretzel Logic (the co-winner!) is the worst of the original 7: everything on side two except Parker's Band" is pretty meh--tho I did crank "Barrytown" the other day in honor of the late Rev Moon....

Gun to head it's probably Countdown to Ecstasy for me. Each song feels like an epic, and nothing feels tossed off. And the playing still has a bit of looseness to it and really just blazes.

Oh shit, "Third World Man"... The guitar outro... I saw them do Gaucho in its entirety last year, and it was great.

I also feel Can't Buy a Thrill is a bit under-loved. "Kings"! "Change of the Guard"!

I think Pretzel Logic (the co-winner!) is the worst of the original 7

^^^^ this seems so obvious to me, too.

TRS 4eva