Reelin' in the Poll: STEELY DAN - ILM Artist poll #50 (voting closed)

remarkable spread on the second of these polls:

Best Steely Dan/Donald Fagen/Walter Becker Album

POLL: Best Steely Dan album

best album track rediscovery so far today: "through with buzz"

biggest album track disappointment so far today: "parker's band." i've long thought this might be my favorite dan song, but the arrangement isn't at all how i'd remembered it in my head. it's still on my list, but more of an 11-20 than a 1-10. there's an "early steely dan" piano demo that's been issued a few times on various weird labels that i think i like better,

favorite otherwise non-available song from those aforementioned early dan demo albums: "a little with sugar"

Such a fun band to chew over. It's weird, though, more than any other act I love for me they stand or fall with the lyrics, to the point where if I wasn't an English speaker I don't think I'd get them all. The whole "most of their songs are really about murder or abuse or meth" thing was my vector to getting properly engrossed in them – of course that would pretty quickly exhaust itself if it wasn't for how the words work against the arrangements, but I don’t have it in me to appreciate most of that heroic sessioneering in of itself (Purdie is the exception). Something like “Time Out Of Mind” – where the sordidness is stuck to the cliches it comes wrapped in, where chasing the dragon and water turning into cherry wine are simultaneously goofy pompousness and awesome mysteries – I don’t know, it seems so dependent on the lyric being a cross-grain to the instrumental.

Fagen said "we knew something was good if we would really laugh at it when we played it back,” which for me goes right back to Kafka laughing hysterically when he read his work to friends.

chasing the dragon = heroin FYI

throwing some early support behind Rose Darling, a kinda heartbreaking song that details a narrative in which the meaningless and insipid hours drag, and the precious moments aren’t rightfully yours for the taking.

also one of the first appearances by michael mcdonald on a steely dan song, which is key.

Black Friday-Bad Sneakers-Rose Darling-Dr. Wu is the greatest foursome in SD's discography. Unequaled depths of intelligence, feeling, and instrumental craft.

otm

I can't think of TRS without hearing the talkbox.

the talkbox/vibraphone (i think?) duet on "Haitian Divorce" is one of my favorite instrumental moments in the SD catalog

yeah, I don't even know what each sound is in that song, but I love it.

The first nine on my ballot were easy--the eight I keep on the computer, plus another one I should have on there. Thought about filling the 10th spot with De La Soul's "Eye Know," but I went with another one I like a lot--even though there might be another song on those first few albums I like better (too lazy to start checking). Didn't vote for "Peg"; like De La Soul's sample much, much more.

In the corner
Of my eye
I saw you in Rudys
You were very high
You were high!

that is creepy. I was listening to that as I read it just now. not black cow. that very measure of black cow.

basically every quote is going to be as great as every other one...the consistency of those records is amazing

Actually, "Have you ever seen a squonk's tears, well look at mine" isn't exactly great--scratch that.

it is DISGUSTING how many bulletproof five star songs i am left with no choice but to leave off of my ballot

Looking forward to voting in this, but I'm the guy who's going to make you all go "Really? How did that one get so many points?"

Meanwhile, I'm sitting here going "Oh, yeah. Which one of them was the one about seeing kangaroos."

I was listening to citizen steely Dan box in my car earlier. Riki don't lose that number was on. Pulled into the grocery store parking lot just as the song finished. Walked into the grocery store just as Riki was startingv on their in storeb play.

pretzel logic is weakest for me. but I don't think I really understand it. I do love "Barrytown" and "Charlie Freak."

Yeah pretzel is the least of their orig run for me too. My golden quartet is Countdown-Katy-Aja-Gaucho.

I'm pretty sure SD also think this is their weakest...

Pretzel Logic was the first SD album i listened to as an album regularly, and i'm fond of the kind of different idea of the band that it presents, but yeah it doesn't really stack up against most of the others.

listening to the alternate running order from a cassette release really helped me hear it with fresh ears a few years ago, though: Pretzel Logic poll

how did i miss that poll...and that tape order looks SO much better can't wait to listen to it that way--thanks

When I bought PL in the spring of '99, influenced by Christgau, Marcus and the other saints of the church, it flummoxed me. So damn tight and obscure. I loved "Rikki" and "Any Major Dude Will Tell You" and "With a Gun" though. I waited a year before Katy Lied, the purchase of which made me a fan. I bought the rest in short order, holding out on Gaucho until 2005 and the great ILM thread; and bought Everything Must Go a couple years ago.

remarkable spread on the second of these polls:

Best Steely Dan/Donald Fagen/Walter Becker Album

POLL: Best Steely Dan album

― fit and working again, Wednesday, March 19, 2014 4:59 PM (3 hours ago)

dont forget: GUESS ITS TIME FOR THIS AGAIN

i always loved how they wrote the greatest song about someone deciding *not* to cheat on someone (Dirty Work) and the greatest (and bitterest) song about catching someone who's been cheating on you (Everything You Did) aswell. both will probs make my Top 20.

suddenly, i'm more partial than ever to the cover art for The Royal Scam. i mean, i really like the concept behind it and i get it, it's just strangely executed.

TRS is possibly my favourite Dan release, but it's a frustrating process to isolate one of them, cuz they all kind of co-depend on each other.

also, i got all sorts of crazy love for Caves of Altamira

Fine. I'll listen to it.

prob their finest horn chart

at the grotto
in the greasy chair
sits the charlie with the lotion and the kinky hair

used to think of Haitian Divorce as a rather uneventful 6 minutes until i thought "wait, fuck no, those lyrics"

suddenly, i'm more partial than ever to the cover art for The Royal Scam. i mean, i really like the concept behind it

the concept of it having been originally created for a van morrison album?

i'm not going to do this often but in about 24 hours i have received 10 ballots. i'm already scratching my head, some usual picks so far but then i remember this is ILM.

You know you can rank 'The Nightfly' above all the SD albums...shoot me but I probably would...I love it's greenness....I love SD but there is something about Fagen and Becker that I'd like to bitch slap out of both of them...

^^^ don't take him alive

i love The Royal Scam, can't believe anyone would hate on it - just as classic as Aja, Pretzel, etc. the solos in Green Earrings!!!!!

i'd got used to most people in my life not really caring about the dan or just being really confused about my huge love for them. then at the weekend my relatively newish girlfriend put their hits album on out of nowhere and started dancing round the kitchen singing along to Do It Again. i was a happy lad.

among other things Judd Apatow set back the Dan love.

Sent! Man, but I had to get rid of some stuff though! And then I thought I'd strategically vote some stuff up - personal favorites that I was concerned about not placing - but they couldn't break my top 5. The only thing I'm going to reveal is that FM, which I had earlier posited as a lock for my Top 5, ended up just outside my Top 10. This was so hard!

It's only over headphones that I can hear the density of "Glamour Profession."

It's only over headphones that I can hear the density of "Glamour Profession."

It's only over headphones that I can hear the density of "Glamour Profession."

I'm sad about the lack of love for Two Against Nature on all of these polls. I think it might actually be the SD album I've spent the most time listening to, partly because it didn't click for me straight away and I kept playing it over and over again trying to get into it.

agreed. West of Hollywood esp crept up on me

might have a vote to spare for Janie Runaway, haven't quite decided yet. if not, it'll get a look in in the lyrics sub-poll

This is going to be really difficult. I'm pretty sure my ballot will be focused almost exclusively on Katy Lied, Royal Scam, Aja, and Gaucho with some Nightfly love in the mix as well.

with some Nightfly love in the mix as well.

re-read the OP--- solo tracks is a side poll iirc

Completely agree with the OP on solo tracks, but man, Kamakiriad material is hard to leave off.

xpost

I know, but it's still going to get attention in my ballot

Kind of relieved to see that I'm not the only person who never really got into Pretzel Logic. It was maybe the fifth one I heard--I started with Aja, then Gaucho, and they both just felt impenetrable. Then I checked out The Royal Scam, figured this band just wasn't for me, and moved on. Maybe a year later, a friend who was familiar with my experiences with the band asked me if I had listened to Countdown to Ecstasy...Anyway, that record blew my fucking mind. Still my favorite, possibly for sentimental reasons but probably not. But then, going back to the other records I'd already heard, it was like a door had been unlocked, because suddenly, immediately, they were the best records I'd ever heard.

But of the original seven, Pretzel Logic and Can't Buy a Thrill are the only two I can't make an argument for being the apotheosis of popular music or whatever.