Steely Dan History
Steely Dan stands as an enigma in popular music. The music is played nearly as often today as it was in the 1970s when it was first recorded.
Walter Becker and Donald Fagen’s tongue in cheek decision to name their band after a sex toy in a William Burroughs movie was a salute to the aesthetic created by the group of college academia the pair hung out with early in their career. Musicians, poets, beatniks, avant-garde writers, all seem to have influenced their music as they paid homage to the understated yet cutting edge of jazz, pop, funk and R&B. The paradoxes embody what we love about rock history. We researched rock critics and album reviews to try to explain the uniqueness of the group at the time. They struggled….
Billboard at the time explains “Their lyrics embodied and flaunted contradictions: spotlessly produced and impeccably performed studio creations about unsympathetic losers and aging sociopaths.”
We love all this historical reaction and thought you would enjoy it as well.
Album reviews
Reviewers at the time struggled to understand the music SD was making. Often the reviews were offputting because there just were not words to explain how it was popular. The band did not tour and did little promotion. The songs were released and the radio played them. And then played them and played them… Radio playlists from the 70s show SD songs never really falling away after they were released. The material spoke for itself. And the cynicism and outright dislike for media that Becker and Fagen shared played into a subversive culture SD embodied. So the media….. worked.
Can’t buy a thrill SDs 1st Album Peaked at # 17 on the Billboard 200
While the history of Walter and Donald up to the first SD sessions is unremarkable, they clearly hit the ground running after connecting with producer Gary Katz, finishing songs they had created in college and were unable to sell in their earlier careers. Can’t buy a thrill had 2 of their biggest hits.
RollingStones James Isaacs said Can't Buy a Thrill is "distinguished by three top-level cuts and scattered moments of inspiration," but felt the band occasionally sounded "limp".
Robert Christgau wrote this review in Cream Magazine in 1972
https://www.robertchristgau.com/get_album.php?id=3310
How could they know that Walter and Donald would love these reviews!
Countdown to Ecstacy 1973 SDs 2nd Album Peaked at #35 on Billboard 200
SD comprised the same members on their 1st 2 albums but a look at the credits shows where they are headed. The extras include 10 session players including Victor Feldman and Ernie Watts. The lyrics become the fodder for critics.
According to Rob Sheffield, Becker and Fagen's lyrics on the album portray America as "one big Las Vegas, with gangsters and gurus hustling for souls to steal.
Erik Adams of The A.V. Club called the album a "dossier of literate lowlifes, the type of character studies that say, 'Why yes, the name Steely Dan is an allusion to a dildo described in Naked Lunch.' These characters hang around the corners of the entire Steely Dan discography, but they come into their own on Countdown to Ecstasy"
RollingStone liked it!
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/countdown-to-ecstasy-190816/
Pretzel Logic 1974 SDs 3rd Album Peaked at #8 on Billboard 200
SDs original members were involved but the session players began to dominate the tunes. SD had stopped touring and that tipped the scales on how the recordings would be done. The truly oblique references of their music present here as well as the dark narratives of the lyrics.
"Rikki Don't Lose That Number" (SDs biggest hit) appropriates the bass pattern from Horace Silver's 1965 jazz hit “Song for my Father”. (and discusses mailing your drugs)
Parkers Band is a homage to Bebops greatest horn player. (and his drug problem)
The critics got on board:
Bud Scoppa from Rolling Stone found the album's "wonderfully fluid ensemble sound" unprecedented in popular music and said that the ambiguous lyrics "create an emotionally charged atmosphere, and the best are quite affecting.
Down Beat asserted that "there are no better rock groups in America, and damn few worldwide. (Pretty amazing for a band that doesn’t tour)
Allmusic contains Stephen Thomas Erlewines review at the time.
https://www.allmusic.com/album/pretzel-logic-mw0000192000
Katy Lied 1975 SDs 4th album. Peaked at #13 on Billboard
While this album is famous for what Fagen and Becker disliked about it, (a new form of DBX filtering that they claimed destroyed the mix) it is the quintessential SD album at the middle of their trajectory. It also introduces Jeff Poccoro (20 years old at the time) Michael Mcdonald and Larry Carlton to their sessions. These 3 become regulars going forward.
Here is the history of the DBX debacle and a great review of the album.
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/steely-dan-katy-lied/
Rolling Stone didn’t like it at the time.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/katy-lied-105273/
After their 4th album Robert Christgau a well respected reviewer and critic at the Village Voice writes a great article about the impact SD is making and the genius at work in their music:
https://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/rock/steely-75.php
Royal Scam 1976 SDs 5th album. Peaked at 15th on the Billboard 200
The credits of the record show no less than 25 session musicians participating. Interviews with the players suggest they did not know if their material would be used in the final product. This trend continues going forward. During the sessions, Larry Carlton recorded a guitar solo on an riff that wasn’t used until Gaucho in 1980.
Critical response was a mix of raves and disappointment. Rollin Stone called it "some of their most accomplished and enjoyable music"
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/the-royal-scam-181904/
Allmusic didn’t like it. Stephen Thomas Erlewines writes
https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-royal-scam-mw0000195860
Asia 1977 SDs 6th album. Peaked at #3 on the Billboard 200
Earned a Grammy and spent a year in the Billboard Top 40 album category reaching number 3 after only three weeks. Relentless perfectionism reached its peak for Fagen and Becker on the Asia album. They spent nearly a year in the studio to make the record. This documentary displays the complicated meticulous details they pursued. It includes interviews with the session players and vocalists. Over 50 musicians contributed to the process. If SD is a band this explains what it would look like.
https://youtu.be/PH3l4mjh2y8?list=PL324F104A39F16841
Barry Walters from Rolling Stone noted "the album's surreal sonic perfection, its melodic and harmonic complexity - music so technically demanding its creators had to call in A-list session players to realize the sounds they heard in their heads but could not play, even on the instruments they had mastered."
Rolling Stone has a great review at the time as well.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/aja-204565/
Shortly after the Aja albums release this interview with Donald and Walter was in Rolling Stone. It summarizes the lack of overt promotion SD is famous for. The reader is drawn in by their lack of real interest in SDs popularity let alone their participation in creating of the material. By now their cynicism is well known and they do not disappoint. They just really want to be left alone to write songs.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/the-second-coming-of-steely-dan-189824/2/
Perhaps the best way to emphasize the impact of the Aja Album over time is to have a look at a recent online review page with the countless entries since the website was created. It is as popular now as it was 40 years ago.
https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=19400
Gaucho 1980 SDs 7th Album Peaked at #9 on the Billboard 200
Also nominated for album of the year and many other recording accolades, the record truly reached the aesthetic SD desired. All of Walter and Donald’s detailed conscience demands were embodied in the finished product. The process was also plagued with the limitations of technology, arguments with their label and personal challenges of working on both coasts. A read of the Wiki page about Gaucho explains the issues well along with the impressive list of participants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaucho_(album)
Two years and way over budget, tracks lost and never released, 176 mix downs of Babylon Sisters, countless musicians brought in for hours of tracking but never used. Nothing was sacrificed in their desire for perfection.
Once again reviews were mixed further playing into SDs cynical mythology.
Rolling Stones’ Ariel Swartley said of the album: "After years of hibernation in the studio, the metamorphosis that began with The Royal Scam is complete. Steely Dan have perfected the aesthetic of the tease.
The second edition of The Rolling Stone Album Guide gave Gaucho a rating of 1 star out of 5; critic Dave Marsh called it "the kind of music that passes for jazz in Holliday Inn lounges, with the kind of lyrics that pass for poetry in freshman English classes.
Stephen Thomas Erlewines didn’t like it either.
https://www.allmusic.com/album/gaucho-mw0000321832
All seven of SDs initial recordings charted well on the Billboard 200, went either Gold or Platinum and have collectively sold over 40 million copies. Currently a new vinyl LP of any of these recordings is available selling at over $25.00 each. They have never been out of release.
SD split after the Gaucho record and Fagen and Becker pursued solo projects and production roles for other artists. They regrouped 20 years later and finally began to tour ostensibly because the creators believed that music technology had advanced to a point that their material could be reproduced to a high enough standard.. SD has continued touring and recorded 2 more well received records of original material since 1993. The touring band uses 15 musicians including 2 keyboardist, 2 guitarists, 4 horns, 3 background singers, Bass, drums, vibes, and percussion. Their live show is consistently the most sought after gig in the county.