The Katy Lied poll

still awaiting the jay & the americans poll

this is def my favorite Dan album. don't think there is a real stand out track for me though.

side 1 is absolutely flawless.

This might be my least favorite of the first 6 albums, just not a lot of songs that ever fully connected with me, like I remember the choruses all really clearly, but not particularly fondly. Voted for "Any World" but "Gold Teeth II" is good, too.

Not one of my favorites either. Come to think of it, this might actually be my least favorite of their albums (I take back what I said about Aja on it's poll thread). Still some good songs on it though. Probably would pick "Doctor Wu" or "Daddy Don't Live etc".

Nothing will dislodge The Royal Scam from its place as my least favorite Dan until Two Against Nature, but KL's second side is merely ok.

This is the album, though, that made me love them, and I still remember the scowls from the clerk I got in 1999 when I bought this (the revival hadn't started yet, no ILM, etc). Here's where they learned to write these seemingly harmless baubles of knotty syncopation, without the serrated edges of CTE and all the creepier for it ("Bad Sneakers" and "Dr. Wu").

Here's where they learned to write these seemingly harmless baubles of knotty syncopation, without the serrated edges of CTE and all the creepier for it ("Bad Sneakers" and "Dr. Wu").

I'd say this sound actually first appeared in "Pretzel Logic" (the song) which would have fit right in on Katy Lied.

the only thing i'm sure of is that chain lightning is the worst song on this, my favorite, dan record.

this is a case where i love love love so many of the songs on this, like jeez rose darling is just gorgeous and bad sneakers is still a mystery but.....Dr. Wu is just the most perfect song ever to me.

thx to the minutemen for covering it and making me a steely dan fan.

I'd say this sound actually first appeared in "Pretzel Logic" (the song) which would have fit right in on Katy Lied.

I thought about it, but Pretzel Logic has a few dense songs. "Barrytown" and "Any Major Dude..." fit the bill.

Gold Teeth II

This album was where I lived in one of my darkest hours. It's excruciatingly painful for me to listen to - I don't even know where my copy's at at the moment, and when I start to look for it, I usually think better of it before I find it. "Doctor Wu" is my instinctive answer, but "Rose Darling" is so dense and rich - "I would guess she's in Detroit, with lots of money in the bank/although I could be wrong" one of my all time favorite Fagen turns of phrase. And then there's "Your Gold Teeth II," which has one of Fagen's greatest vocals of the era - "who scheme and run wiiiiild," brutal.

But for me it's either "Rose Darling" or "Dr. Wu" and I'll just be flipping a oin at that point.

a coin, even

oining a phrase

oing oing oinging a phrase, I think you mean

"Your Gold Teeth II" is probably the first song on this album I really connected to, and I attribute that wholly to the Charlie Brown Christmas piano.

fuck I can't find my copy, I'm about 95% sure I've bought this damn thing three times and i feel like I gotta hear it today

stupid disorganized packrat sensibilities really suck when you gotta hear something and you don't seem to have ever transferred it to the hard drive

btw Becker plays mad-wicked guitar on this.

"Any World (That I'm Welcome To)"

I thought about it, but Pretzel Logic has a few dense songs. "Barrytown" and "Any Major Dude..." fit the bill

Dense, yeah, but they lack that bluesy vamp thing that runs through most of Katy. "Bad Sneakers" to me sounds more like a Pretzel Logic song - the overt formal playfulness of it. But maybe that's my own idiosyncratic interpretation.

doctor wu is my favorite steely dan song, so its that

rose darling is runner-up

Christgau OTM:

Opening with an economic crash and closing with a smacked-out rumination about succor, betrayal, and Vietnam, the first side seems surprisingly sweet and lyrical--mostly by way of the Manhattan nostalgia of "Bad Sneakers" and the faithless passion of "Rose Darling," but also, and most tellingly, in the rumination. This is a matter of rhythm and timbre rather than verbal content--the music lets us know that their cynicism is no more a celebration of cynicism than their smack references are a celebration of smack, lets us know we can break the habit. By comparison the three skillful urban miniatures on side two seem thin and tight, never quite brought around by the more expansive emotions of "Your Gold Teeth II" (throw them out and see how they roll) and "Any World (That I'm Welcome To)" ("Is better than the one I come from"). A-

Betting on the favorite, "Doctor Wu," on which, as you know, the man who married Charlie Parker's widow plays alto.

"Everyone's Gone To The Movies". Creepy lyrics, but wonderful song.

I threw up the first time I listened to this album. Until some good friends nudged me a little on Gaucho, this was my favorite Dan album.

Much as I love the hopelessness of "Any World That I'm Welcome To," my favorite's got to be "Everyone's Gone to the Movies," mostly because I feel like when the chorus comes in I can't shake the image of the protagonist's eyes lighting up like a pinball machine, which anyone who knows the song will know that's a strongly disturbing image.

For the record, the movie Happiness boldly cribs this album. Todd Solondz's whole oeurve is practically a giant Steely Dan flick.

my least favourite of Dan's good years albums, but gold teeth 2.black friday close 2nd

doctor wu!

I've heard Fagen & Becker weren't happy with the way it was mixed, but this one usually hovers around my top two, maybe three favorite. Excepting Aja, possibly the only SD record for me without a single weak(ish) track.

after some serious consideration, I've got it narrowed down to Dr. Wu & Bad Sneakers.

i mean even Gaucho & Countdown have a song a piece i could skip over.

ok maybe chain lightning doesn't hit quite like the others. Still awesome though.

"Any World (That I'm Welcome To)" for me too

Show Biz Kids! I am soooo loving the sound of crickets over on the CtE thread...
Dr. Wu, fer sher

"Black Friday" - such a perfect opener, their best gleeful rocker
"When Black Friday comes / I'll collect everything I'm owed / And before my friends find out / I'll be on the road", it mentions KANGAROOS!

my favorite record of theirs, even though i also massively heart "aja" and "gaucho".

it's a good record to listen to when you're feeling down but not yet out. ridiculously compassionate and incisive lyrical vibe

like, people always are harping on about how cynical their lyrics are and stuff, but they have come up with some really moving stuff. fucking "any major dude" is like getting a massage from yr favorite grandparent (AND NOT IN A CREEPY WAY)

A grandparent who tells you the world's gone to shit after giving you said massage, though.

"doctor wu" is one of the best songs ever committed to vinyl which deals with the subject of substance abuse, and "caves of altamira" functions as a non-creepy counterpoint to "everyone's gone to the movies" childhood experiences. how do human beings manage to write such a groovy song about childhood perspectives? i dunno, but they somehow managed to do it.

"Any Major Dude" is great because it's so compassionate yet contemptuous at the same time.

"Caves" is on The Royal Scam.

xpost

haha, right you are on that point, Alfred

further xposts

yeah, exactly, o. nate. i stand/sit in awe of that shit

xxxxpost

yes, i realize that jamymc

Oh OK, carry on then.

yes, i realize that jamymc

please change your username to that posthaste

I don't want to do your dirty work no more.

YGTII

O, the things we've seen and heard! -- an Arp synthesizer burning in the courtyard of a West Hollywood sound stage -- the thunder of a DeTomaso Pantera parked beneath the echo chambers of Studio C -- the mighty room-service bill from the Beverly Wilshire hotel, reflecting the cost of the joyful reunion of Mr. Phil Woods and 200 of his closest L.A. studio/jazz-musician pallies . . .

ROSE DARLING. One of the loveliest choruses ever and an even for SD deliciously made track. Bought '95 or so, my 1st SD album, guy didn't give me a funny look but since I was 16 or whatever he prob thought it was for my dad

Except maybe for Gaucho, I find this their most despairing album and as such, an extremely unpleasant listening experience, great though it is. I can very much see why anyone would think twice before playing it.

I went with "Doctor Wu," in many ways the ultimate Steely Dan song, for how it amps up both the catchiness and the nihilism and how it burdens single words with so much meaning.

My favorite early SD album. "Doctor Wu" gets my vote - it's niiice.

that fearsome excavation on Magnolia Boulevard

Dr. Wu

Dr Wu

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Dr. Wu

"Doctor Wu" was one of my favorite SD tracks for a long time, but I've also always been sorta drawn to "Any World" for its... shit, I dunno... it's got that cinematic quality that they achieve sometimes, but even compared to something like "Black Friday" or "Here at the Western World" or "Aja", "Any World" seems so over-the-top and melodramatic in its desperation. and I'm really pretty down on life lately, so for some reason that's very appealing to me right now.

it is "Dr. Wu" for me, finally. but "Rose Darling" comes damn close.

Wu

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

I agree w/ geir
the drums at the end of the track are great

I'm geir btw

Ellington would've dug the horns in the bridge of "Throw Back the Little Ones."

Bad sneakers and a pina colada, my friend!!!!!!1111111

I like how the lyrics in "Dr. Wu" mention a "Katy TRIED..." and a "Katy LIES..." (but not a "Katy LIED...," strangely enough), and the album cover is a picture of a katyDID.

I would guess she's in detroit, with lots of money in the bank, although I could be wrong...

been thinking about j0hn d. pinpointing this line as being the crux of this song and basically he could not be more otm if his name was nabisco

although I could be wrong.

I love this album, but I really don't like that it ends with "Throw Back the Little Ones." "Any World" is such a perfect ending to a near-perfect album. I wouldn't mind if "Throw Back" was actually not on the record, entirely.

but those horns are so great! I hear it as a kind of epilogue (musically. at least), although "any world" is one if my favorite songs of theirs and would work wonderfully as a closer

everyone's gone to the movies = the most steely dan song ever?

THROW BACK the little ones, and PAN FRY the big ones.
Use TACT, POISE, and REASON
To GENTLY SQUEEEZE them

Daddy Don't Live in That New York City No More 1

harsh!

That sudden key change on the chorus 'Bad Sneakers'!

THROW BACK the little ones, and PAN FRY the big ones.
Use TACT, POISE, and REASON
To GENTLY SQUEEEZE them

― I know hoes that know Ali Farka Toure (voodoo chili), Thursday, October 27, 2016 11:19 AM (ten months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i often want to make this exact post

Porcaro's drumming on this record is so OTM.

yea he kills it on Everyone's Gone to the Movies

dr wu probably is the best song on the record, but wow, why such a blowout? any world, throw back, gold teeth, bad sneakers, even rose darling nip right at its heels.

even most definitely rose darling

'Rose Darling' is one of my favourite songs on here without a doubt!

pretty crucial "Daddy Don't Live In That New York City No More" being on this album, bc to me this feels like the album signifying some type of glorious move to the west coast, after the much more NYC-ness of the first three albums, then the next three albums are all dissolute tales of the L.A. life. one could argue or idk fantasize even, that Royal Scam is the Becker perspective and life, Aja is the Fagen, and Gaucho is where they come back together for their final downfall. if we regard, as i sometimes do, the stories told by Steely Dan to be these increasingly noirish fables: Becker's version of noir is the more cynical, Fagen's the more romantic and longing, and then they meet up again when it all falls apart, their hands closing over empty air where what they were striving for once was.

The vocal effect on that one is sweet

That song's another good example of what I find sad about their albums (and also why they work even better as albums rather than sliced up into individual songs). They're like one of those movies about glamorous despair, where the characters seem to be living it up in hedonistic fashion. The movie itself - from the style to the rhythm to the dialogue - will tap into that, but while it can be viscerally engaging on the surface, it's tempered by the realization that this is a sad individual who's engaging in self-destruction, like a slow act of suicide. That feeling's all over Katy Lied and it makes perfect sense why it eventually leads to "Any World (That I'm Welcome To)."

To be clear, I think their albums have a hilariously dark sense of humor too - they're a lot of things.

I think "soon it will BE too laaAAte" is prob Donald's creepiest line delivery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPcLXqxGFMk

gotta bring up this record at any available opportunity, just gorgeous stuff, and the stripped down arrangements really highlight what weirdo geniuses Don and Walt were

This record is the last to include a lot of their weirder impulses - they may have seen gone on to see them as immaturities or awkward gestures. Things like the sax that fades in and out of "Everyone's Gone to the Movies", the self-consciously arty overture to "Your Gold Teeth II", or the oblique ending to "Throw Back the Little Ones" (or even ending the record on such a quizzical song). What they gained in groove wasn't quite a fair trade-off for what they lost or abandoned.
I was dismayed to realize today that the first verse of "Everyone's Gone to the Movies" rhymes "fun" with "fun", though.

realized that Chain Lightning sounds like a dry run for a lot of what Fagen would explore on The Nightfly.

i love this album, been jamming it heavily lately. but i don't think they lost much over the next three albums, i kinda accept that they were constantly shifting over the course of the '72-'80 run and never remained in one place for too long. despite the occasional melodic callbacks to previous songs on later albums they all sound so different, and tell such different tales.

their best imo

Yeah, this definitely feels like it could be their best. Countdown, Pretzel Logic and Katy Lied are like the holy trinity of Steely Dan albums for me, and they each have something I really love that distinguishes it from the others. The way Pretzel Logic gets even stranger and broader eclecticism of Countdown makes a great case for either of them being their best as well.

*the broader