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The Greatness that is Steely Dan


Asithappens

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I wholeheartedly support this thread.  Have seen them twice, the last time at the Hollywood Bowl a couple of years ago, not long before WB's death, with Elvis Costello opening.  Amazing show.  I love it all, but Royal Scam, Can't Buy a Thrill, and Aja hold a special place for me.

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6 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

I wholeheartedly support this thread.  Have seen them twice, the last time at the Hollywood Bowl a couple of years ago, not long before WB's death, with Elvis Costello opening.  Amazing show.  I love it all, but Royal Scam, Can't Buy a Thrill, and Aja hold a special place for me.

Wow. What I wouldn't give to have heard Costello and The Dan. 

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1 hour ago, Sbbruin said:

I wholeheartedly support this thread.  Have seen them twice, the last time at the Hollywood Bowl a couple of years ago, not long before WB's death, with Elvis Costello opening.  Amazing show.  I love it all, but Royal Scam, Can't Buy a Thrill, and Aja hold a special place for me.

Put Pretzel Logic in that mix, and you have my pantheon of Steely Dan.  Not a fan of gaucho, too poppy, jazzy IMO.

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1 hour ago, Asithappens said:

Wow. What I wouldn't give to have heard Costello and The Dan. 

It was awesome.  And the Hollywood Bowl is a great venue for music.  Interestingly Becker was doing a lot of the talking between songs.  Fagan is usually the verbose one.  So bummed he passed.

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7 minutes ago, Nole-4-Life said:

 


Didn’t know about that. I just never see him mentioned on any Top guitarists lists and he’s incredible.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Been a Doobie brothers fan from way back.  Yeah they did a skunk Baxter muppet guitar player.

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I binged on Steely Dan last year and re-equainted myself with a catalog with which I had not been nearly familiar enough. I particularly like the earlier stuff, and Skunk was just nasty AF. Katy Lied rules your face.

Edited by DougO
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10 hours ago, DougO said:

I binged on Steely Dan last year and re-equainted myself with a catalog with which I had not been nearly familiar enough. I particularly like the earlier stuff, and Skunk was just nasty AF. Katy Lied rules your face.

Same. I wasn't as familiar w the early/mid 70s stuff. There are some tremendous songs in there. Sign in Stranger, Barrytown, Dr Wu, Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me)...

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Steely Dan didn't write a bad song until Glamour Profession, imo. And for them "bad" is relative. The song doesn't suck or anything. It's just their first song that I didn't think was very good. 

I love Katie Lied. I played it at my poker game last night. Dr. Wu is great and so is Your Gold Teeth II. I love that song.

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Love SD, so many great tunes and always top notch musicians on their recordings/live shows. Hard to pick favorites from such deep and diverse catalog but Chain Lightning, Any Major Dude come to mind. Rick Derringer with the solid guitar work on Chain Lightning.

The video they did to promote Everything Must Go is hilarious. Cab rides with the Dan in Vegas(I think) really shows their quirky sense of humor. They are in their own musical category for me.

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4 hours ago, Mr.Hovis said:

The video they did to promote Everything Must Go is hilarious. Cab rides with the Dan in Vegas(I think) really shows their quirky sense of humor. They are in their own musical category for me.

That was awesome. The cabbie was one of the drivers from HBO's Taxicab Confessions so it was basically a Steely Dan take on that formula. 

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On ‎3‎/‎24‎/‎2019 at 1:00 AM, WhatTheBuck said:

That was awesome. The cabbie was one of the drivers from HBO's Taxicab Confessions so it was basically a Steely Dan take on that formula. 

Yeah, it was a great video, but Everything Must Go is the least familiar of all their work to me. Gotta give it a listen again

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I gave Steely Dan a shot after a Google search led me to give 'Aja' a listen as one of the best records to own on vinyl (after I bought my turntable). I finally found an OG copy a few months ago and now I get the hype. What a great album. I still struggle to describe what makes it great, it's just kind of everything. I spent an hour last night watching live performances/making ofs, etc. of 'Peg' and 'Home at Last'. Black Cow, Deacon Blues, Aja, all great. Gotta try the other albums, I know some of the songs from growing up with classic rock radio.

 

 

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8 minutes ago, DougO said:

Aja has some great tunes on it, but I don't think it's as good as any of their preceding albums.

Uhhhh.........Ummmmm...... your personal taste of course is .....  I .....  greatest album............  never mind.....  (walking away shaking head)

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23 hours ago, DougO said:

Aja has some great tunes on it, but I don't think it's as good as any of their preceding albums.

It is incredibly technically sound.  A bit of a departure from their previous albums musically, but to put it at the bottom of their catalog is wrong on every level.  

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2 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

It is incredibly technically sound.  A bit of a departure from their previous albums musically, but to put it at the bottom of their catalog is wrong on every level.  

Yeah for sure. It's a swerve to a more jazz flavored album, but it stands out as their best musically technical album to me.  That me, as a 9th grader listening to it for the first time recognized the originality, and greatness that it was makes it their best for me. I was listening to southern rock then, so that was a huge step for my musical taste.  It's their best album in my opinion followed by those that came before.  

Their weakest album was Gaucho IMO, which was just waaaay to poppy for my taste as a high schooler listening to classic rock, punk, Elvis Costello, Little feat, bluegrass, the Dead, Zeppelin, etc in the early 80's.

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  • 1 year later...

I generally hate excessively-produced music (despise prog rock), but Dan were the masters of overproducing a clean, sparse sound. Even songs of theirs I don’t really care for sound great; the ones I like (Don’t Take Me Alive, My Old School, FM) sound fresh every time even though I’ve heard them a million times....

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