Steely Dan - The Royal Scam poll

fez

caves of altamira

the white man is crazy

This is easily "Haitian" Divorce"

My least favorite album: clavinets and talk boxes hither and thither, songs that run too long for no reason. After loving SD for years, I still couldn't hum "Everything You Did" and "The Royal Scam."

"Don't Take Me Alive" over "Kid Charlemagne" in a photo finish.

Is there gas in the car??????

yes there's gas in the car!!

when there wasn't even any hollywood

how some folks felt about "Show Biz Kids" = how I feel about "Don't Take Me Alive" x1000 -- those lyrics deserve better

I think this is the hardest SD album for me to call, favorites-wise, very consistent with no real strong favorites or un-favorites. will probably vote for either "Caves" or the title track or "Sign In Stranger" or "Haitian Divorce" or...yeah you can see where this is going.

xpost yeah "Don't Take Me Alive" was one I liked as a kid but can't really stand now.

Don't Take Me Alive, which I didn't vote for, has one of the top five solos though...isn't it Rick Derringer shredding?

kid charlemagne

Wonchu Sign in Strang'

This one's a no-brainer: Kid Charlemagne

Caves

Clavinets rule, dude.

Indeed, The Clavinets of Altamira

Actually, I wouldn't say this is my favorite SD album, but I have sometimes thought that it's the pinnacle of their sound: it sounds sparkly and polished without the sterility that sometimes dogs Aja and Gaucho.

best sd clav song is night by night

my fave SD album. am not voting as i cant decide between 'haitian divorce', 'dont take me alive' and 'caves of altamira'. 'kid charlemagne' is about as funky as they got too. the whole set is brilliant not a duff track on it.

ok decided to go for "Sign In Stranger." YOU ZOMBIE!

The Royal Scam is the first Steely Dan record that doesn't exhibit significant musical progress from its predecessor,
This line from AMG is total bullshit right? Royal sounds nothing like Katy. It seems like the album where they beacame the Steely Dan that people think of when they hear the name. Katy Lied still sounded somewhat like a band playing in a room, while Scam is the fist one to sound like a studio machine firing on all engines.
basically jaymc otm.

for me, it's probably the weakest of the original run of albums. even so, there's lots of strong stuff here. i'm leaning Charlemagne cause it fucking bangs, but i've got a soft spot for caves and haitian divorce.

also "turn up the eagles, the neighbors are listening" A++

Yeah, I never managed to get into that album really.

I think it's their best album...and so does Rickie Lee Jones...and I voted for "The Caves Of Altamira" and "Night By Night" is their best clavi song...and...oh i forgot

as a collection it seems unfocused but there some real gems in it. but "Kid Charlemagne" changed my fucking life for real, some of the best narrative on Fagen's resume. 'Clean this mess up else we'll all wind up in jail/those test tubes, and the scale' one of the all-time couplets.

I don't find the album too bad, but there are some single tracks dragging it down considerably. "The Fez" and the title track both get too repetitive and monotonous in the long run.

This is my second favorite SD album -and their most rockin' album since "Countdown". No bad songs on it. Probably "Sign In Stranger" would be my pick.

Kid Charlemagne has one of those Fagen idées fixes - or whatever you want to call them - "Careful what you carry." As in "I can see from what you carry that you come from Barrytown."

That and the letters, the shoes. Has anyone made a list of his repeated lyrical tropes?

haha Geir and I agree!

this album kicks so much collctive bottom.

Kind of a throwback to Ecstasy, it seems to me, with the longish jammy tracks, and the hotshit solos standing out a bit more against the repetitiousness (which I don't mind at all, but I don't mind "Show Biz Kids" either).

"Kid Charlemagne" comes real close, but I wish Larry Carlton's guitar licks were a little bit less tasteful - "Skunk" Baxter-style edginess woulda been more appropriate. So I go with "Sign In Stranger". Love that Monkish piano and "Do you like to take a yo-yo for a ride?"

kid charlemagne.boring answer,but true.

Went with "Royal Scam" because it's such a phenomenal and focused lyric, and a true one as far as the lie so many people were sold as they entered America.

"Sign in Stranger" is one of the very few Dan songs that I never remember how it goes; like "Razor Boy" and "Everything You Did" and "Boston Rag" and "Rose Darling."

Kid Charlemagne has one of those Fagen idées fixes - or whatever you want to call them - "Careful what you carry." As in "I can see from what you carry that you come from Barrytown."

That and the letters, the shoes. Has anyone made a list of his repeated lyrical tropes?

I'm no expert but didn't Walter Fagen write a shitload of the Steely Dan lyrics? Maybe even the majority of them?

its the best sd album - a lot of people dont realize this - why because they r dumb i dunno

Yeah, Becker wrote a lot of those lyrics.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

this is kinda like the katy lied poll for me where i wanted to vote something other than "dr. wu" but it just seemed too perfect a song...

...so anyway, kid charlamagne, i'm boring.

if i could vote again - caves

Haitian Divorce, particularly for the "Now we dolly back/Now we fade to black -> soaking wah solo" bit, which is a bit of a trick, yeah, but it gets me every time.

its the best sd album - a lot of people dont realize this - why because they r dumb i dunno

just wanna point out that this opinion is insane

best Dan records are aja and ecstasy

see now there's a man who know what's up

"katy lied" comes very very close to those two also as does "gaucho" which is the one about which the most convincing "no, see, this one is actually the best" case can be built

I'd put Royal Scam on a par with Katy Lied, which is a tier below Aja and Countdown, but above everything else (in my personal estimation).

Why the Gaucho love, j)hn?

That is to say, I've never had love for that album outside of Babylon Sisters, Hey 19, and the one about heroin that gets played on all the smooth jazz stations.

I mean, Glamour Profession would've been great minus two or three minutes and if Fagan's voice wasn't shot to shit.

I'd nestle "The Nightfly" between "PL" & "RS"

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i never knewwwwwww you
you were a ROLLLA SKATA
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A terrible bridge to a weak song!

I used to find that song off-putting but now I love every second of it

Turn up the Eagles
the neighbors are listening

A terrible bridge to a weak song!

― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, February 10, 2021 11:42 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

if by "terrible" you mean great, and by "bridge" you mean "chorus," and by "weak" you mean "also great," then yes.

I don't hear any choruses in that song, just the verses and the bridge played twice.

Should have had "Here at the Western World" on The Royal Scam in its place.

lots of SD songs from katy lied onward don't really have bridges. the solo section usually has chords distinct enough from the rest of the song to play that role.

there are exceptions, obviously ("sign in stranger," and i guess "don't take me alive" has an instrumental bridge)

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2981/5924/products/df9da21b7b6e58956761b8841434a07d_2048x2048.jpg

Should have had "Here at the Western World" on The Royal Scam in its place.

― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, February 10, 2021 1:46 PM (thirty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

"Here At the Western World" is definitely the superior song (and actually in my personal top 5 SD songs over anything on the Royal Scam), but I think they were right to leave it off the album because it doesn't really fit the Royal Scam vibe. It feel more Katy Lied-ish to me, kind of their last shot at that sound before cranking up the slickness and funk factor.

Yeah heavy KL vibes on that one

Actually I'm kind of torn about "...Western World", because it's such a great song that it deserves a place on a proper album, but at the same time its orphan status kind of enhances its already cryptic and mysterious aura.

I can see that point of view, but I think Everything You Did is the least typical song on RS anyway. It's like an uninspired takeoff on Bad Sneakers.

In terms of tempo and instrumentation, not lyrics.

"not as good as bad sneakers" is a quality "everything you did" shares with 99.5% of all other music, so

The Royal Scam the song is way underrated here. Incredibly heavy and funky in its own way. I love the background vocals and muted horns. Maybe one of their bleakest and least funny lyrics, just hammering home the emptiness and unfulfilled promises of the American Dream for immigrants. The fact that it doesn't go anywhere is kind of the point, imo: The last lyric is the first line repeated. The cycle continues.

Everything you did also great, the pop clarity breakthrough of I NEVER KNEW YOU, the Eagles line referenced above, great funny/gross lyrics. Am I alone in thinking Sign in Stranger is the weak link here?

"sign in stranger" is glorious for paul griffin's dancing piano and elliott randall's gorgeous outro guitar solo.

"the fez" is the obvious weak link, tho i appreciate its oddness and wouldn't remove it off the album

"dont take me alive" got played on the local classic rock radio as much as "reelin" or "hey 19" when i was a kid. i guess it was still dj's choice there before clear channel bought up everything. i was surprised to learn later that it wasn't a single.

Whitey otm re: The Royal Scam title track. It's maybe the only song I would describe as "plodding" in a good way. For me the weak link is "Don't Take Me Alive." The verses and guitar work are awesome, but the chorus has always struck me as uncharacteristically clunky, particularly "Well I crossed my old man back in Oregon/Don't take me alive"

Always felt that the absent 'bastard' in Everything You Did could be the narrator from Dirty Work.

lol nice.

narrator of Deacon Blues could be the Dirty Work guy 5 cynical years down the line

The Royal Scam the song is way underrated here. Incredibly heavy and funky in its own way. I love the background vocals and muted horns. Maybe one of their bleakest and least funny lyrics, just hammering home the emptiness and unfulfilled promises of the American Dream for immigrants. The fact that it doesn't go anywhere is kind of the point, imo: The last lyric is the first line repeated. The cycle continues.

It's not as slow or weighty, but "Charlie Freak" is another equally direct, compassionate song about subjects mired in drug addiction.

i remember
the rings of rare design!

i remember!
that look in your eye

yeah I love that the album considered the biggest bummer in their catalog has The Fez on it

xps

My neighbor has just come out for the evening and has blasted "Sign-In Stranger" and now "Don't Take Me Alive".

Now they've moved over to "Deacon Blues".

I would have thought the first song was an invitation for you to come over but the second song confuses the message

No confusion, the songs do indeed spell out the whole message. They're just crazy.

Really feeling this lately. The playing on this album is so sick. The horns on caves of altamira are some of the best, the interplay as the saxophone weaves in and out. The guitar solo on green earrings. The talkbox guitar solo on haitian divorce. The Fez coming on like love unlimited orchestra as interpreted by some kind of disco android. All the apocalyptic sci fi imagery in the lyrics. So great.

For whatever reason -- and it could be as simple as "Kid Charlemagne" being an all-time banger -- this is the album I return to most often. There are other Dan LPs where the tracklist looks better on paper, but something about this one just works. Even the title track, which is not an enjoyable piece of music in any other context, is a fitting album closer, along the lines (no pun intended) of "Mass Production."

One of my top 1 or 2 by them, depending on the day.

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— I.G.Y. azalea (@HaitianDvorce) May 11, 2023

people who do it without the fez on vs. person who never does it without the fez on

My 12 yr old, who loves steely Dan now, will just randomly go around singing the fez

Saw a Steely Dan tribute band for free at a local park recently. Couldn’t believe they played “The Fez,” which I love.

“Green Earrings” isn’t my favorite track, but I really dig it.

"Don't Take Me Alive" came in surprisingly low. I'd rate it just below "Kid Charlemagne," and on some days even above it.

Steely Dan really does not have duffer tunes, so their LPs especially in the first run are all good. That first three tunes out of the gate on this one is pretty hot.

When I first started listening to the Dan way back as a teen, I had the Greatest Hits and Aja for a long time. At some point in early 90s I got this one and Countdown to Ecstasy on Lp same day for a couple bucks each. I liked Countdown but listened to the Royal Scam A Lot in many different states of buzz.

‘Caves of Altamira’ really was fascinating to me on its origins.

For whatever reason, Countdown was both my late night drinking and my early morning hangover and shower album in college. Royal Scam was never widely listened to in my group. Now, I think it's one of their strongest from start to finish.

Honestly I don't think there's an incorrect answer to the question, "which of Steely Dan's first seven albums is your favorite?"

"Avalon."

"Minute by Minute"

“Althea”

i was sitting in the passenger seat of my friend's car one time and Steely Dan came on the classic rock station. He remarked that his dad used to play him Steely Dan records when he was a little kid and he always imagined them as a bunch of investment bankers. It struck him as the kind of music investment bankers make. i think he thought they were kinda lame.

had another friend in high school who took jazz guitar lessons, he was into this album at the time. i always think of him scatting along to the amazing Larry Carlton solo in Kid Charlemagne when i hear this, or mouthing the words "and there wasn't even any Hollywood" with a big grin on his face. i could've posted that in the time and place thread but here we are.

the Kid Charlemagne/Caves if Altamira one-two punch takes it tho.

but you and me, we understood

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