Steely Dan or Sade?

Dan has better lyrics

SD has better and more interesting arrangements, better lyrics, better playing, draws from more musical styles.
Sade has better singing.

more crit-friendly, it's true xp

i love sade, but c;mon!

i wish becker/fagen would write an album for sade with really perverse lyrics

sade's singing is amazing but imo the arrangements, playing, even the lyrics are on par with steely dan, just different, more subtle and face-value at the same time somehow. anyway, equally sophisticated. plus i get more pleasure out of listening to sade than sd these days. i mean, steely dan are all time, don't get me wrong.

xp perversity is overrated

i like the way sade approach darker themes, tempted to say it feels more adult than sd but that's not really true

perversity ain't overrated when it's done well, a la becker/fagen (or burroughs, genet, etc, etc)

both are terrible, and my idea of hell is being trapped in a room where the DJ is playing only sade and steely dan.

no dis against sade, but the answer is dan dan dan

although it's dan dan mian if we're talking about food

mods please note my flag

difficult choice since sade is oft my jam but dan 4ever

I love Sade but I don't know that she's really a great singer - she has a thing she does that's really effective but isn't her range p limited? I don't know I think her nearest 70s analogue is Roxy Music

oh my god SADE

Steely Dan I only got into because a friend sang "Deacon Blues" in a really ridiculous way at karaoke. Sade is gut level sensual and gorgeous, beyond words. Dan's best thing is that some of the lyrics and songs are fun to ponder.

Sade is gut level sensual and gorgeous, beyond words.

― Team Safeword (Abbbottt), Saturday, July 14, 2012 4:51 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^^^^^yes

sade is like...pinnacle-of-human-achievement amazing

As taking sides go this one seems unusually cruel.

i understand and agree w/ abbs/lex on sade's visceral appeal (which isn't to reciprocally diminish her other qualities), but the dan probably has more songs i love. no loser here

Steely Dan, for all that they did in the '70s (don't know much beyond)--and the gap is as wide for me as Taxi Driver vs. The Departed.

this is like comparing Tom Petty and Dylan

I love Sade but I don't know that she's really a great singer - she has a thing she does that's really effective but isn't her range p limited? I don't know I think her nearest 70s analogue is Roxy Music

― perry en concrète (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Friday, July 13, 2012 9:39 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was just thinking this yesterday! superficially she has a particular territory, but once you let yourself inside it just opens up into something really big. i mean you can say like "relationships and love" is limited as a topic but then sade just creates this amazing world out of it in such an off-hand fashion. i feel the same way about bryan ferry and roxy music.

sade vs rm would be another "fun" poll or maybe love deluxe vs. avalon.

i do feel like there are diminishing returns after love deluxe with sade atm

this is like comparing Tom Petty and Dylan

really? i mean Tom would never exist sans the Bob, but i don't see or hear a real relation between Sade and SD....unless we're only talking Aja-era and disregarding all of the Dan's early records
xpost

I listen to Steely Dan way more than I listen to Sade (like, once a week vs. maybe twice a year), but Sade (which is a band) have never made a bad album, whereas I don't like anything Steely Dan have done post-Gaucho. Plus, Sade on the Love Deluxe tour in '92 was one of the greatest concert experiences of my life. Very tough choice here.

superficially she has a particular territory, but once you let yourself inside it just opens up into something really big.

oh I agree - I love Sade except for the most recent album, which I didn't love - but she's more a stylist than a singer

I vote steely dan like teachers union members vote democrat

i do feel like there are diminishing returns after love deluxe with sade atm

lovers rock is killer if a little more tranquil and unobtrusive than the rest of their catalog

yeah I put lovers rock up there with the best - tremendous record

This thread makes a good case for reinstating the Suggest Ban.

serious q, does Sade have any songs that aren't in 4/4? I assume there are a couple in 6/8 but I'm drawing a blank

Rev is otm if only to say FucK tha Police

Can we have a rule that you're only allowed to vote in this if you're on the record as loving both bands? I don't want the poll to be hijacked by terrorists.

That rule would be a little late.

i love both of these bands but i gotta vote steely dan for real

xpost "Sweetest Taboo" is not 4/4, is it?

Love is King is 6/8. So is Is It a Crime. I'm sure there are others. But yeah, except when she goes all cosmo pop like on "Taboo," it's so smooth it may as well be 4/4. No tricky change ups, like the Dan does.

Lovers Rock is my favourite album by either artist, so, Sade

I was going to vote Sade mostly bcz of "Doomsday" and to counter established Dan worship

In that case i will vote Dan bcz of "Gas Drawls"!

A friend and I were talking a few minutes ago about how easily you could swap Beth Gibbons for Sade; it's easy to imagine Sade singing "Sour Times" or "Machine Gun."

Sade would kill those songs in the most incredible way. She'd also do great on Massive Attack's Liz Fraser stuff.

guys what if we could get Sade to do "Kid Charlemagne" at about 3/4 speed

think about it oh my fuckin God you guys

I'd love to hear Sade do "The Fez" at half speed.

no -- "Haitian Divorce"

Ha, I've never heard this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt8n77Fq1E8

the royal scam as performed by sade

i like more steely dan songs, but i like sade songs more

^ so sade

"I Know Where It's At" was one of my favourite songs of its year--either one of them or all but one of them is Canadian. Didn't clue into the Steely Dan sample.

wow had no idea about the all saints sampling either until now, and have heard both tracks a thousand times. its also fun to play Show Biz Kids for loser non-Dan fan indie kids and they get all weirded out when the obvious line comes in.

did some indie band bite "Show Biz Kids" at some point? I missed that

In the best possible way!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHLTy33qWM

"Sweetest Taboo" is 4/4 just v syncopated, the sixteenths notes are broken into groups of something like 3-3-4-2-2-2 instead of 4-4-4-4. "Haunt Me" is another 6/8 one tho. Not sure what this has to do with anything other than muso nerdery tho.

I think you hit it right on the head, actually

btw this is practically impossible for me to make a decision on

just points of comparison - one thing about Steely Dan is that they are heavy musos, and as we know, musos love to mix up time signatures.

perhaps rush should have been an option here too

that super furry panda bear or whatever is unlistenable

i couldn't make it much past the sample of the other one...crazy kids!

Wouldn't "Sweetest Taboo" be 8/8? Still syncopated into various patterns, but it takes 8 counts each time to resolve the main bit.

Steely Dan were musos, but I don't recall too many out-there time signatures. Now, weird chords, yeah, and crazy flourishes, but they don't get all proggy.

xpost The joke of the SFA song is that once it hits that bit it just stays on that bit. Live they'd do it epic, and it was hilarious. Often in ape suits.

Sorry, yeti suits.

Jesus Dan no contest wtf poll? Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb

Wow ILX Steely Dan polls are the most tedious things on the Internet

(Meant to qualify that 'most tedious' claim w the words 'some of' to make it slightly less dickish. Sorry.)

Wow ILX Steely Dan polls are the most tedious things on the Internet

― the Notorious B1G1 (loves laboured breathing), Sunday, July 15, 2012 5:50 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^

Pronounced Shar-Day Dan

Steely Dan were musos, but I don't recall too many out-there time signatures.

not for full songs but in bridges & choruses - switch-ups (Your Gold Teeth II is the one that comes to mind first but I'm sure there's plenty others). But yeah no they're not like Zappa or your standard 4's-for-squares guitar-academy dudes - they're would-be jazzbos

Yeah they did a lot of fancy time signature stuff during "transitions" and intros ("bad sneakers" intro for ex.) or just jumping back between 4/4 and 6/8 like the prechorus of kid Charlemagne.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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

feelin like the Incredible Hulk right now

green?

maybe listen to some Steely Dan to mellow out

ILM's cruelest poll

the sweetest taboo

redo

Sade

if we did this again I think it would be a lot closer

I thought it said Steely Dan vs Slade.

Easy pick, obv...

Slade vs Sade a bit tougher.

One of them has to take the L