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

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.

I look at all the Pretzel Logic indifference in this thread and I'm glad I've got it at #1 and #2.

Someone correct me: popular opinion held Aja as best for many years, critics preferred Pretzel Logic and Countdown to Ecstacy, now we're reelin' in the years.

Aja is prob the critical favorite too, but their fanbase among critics is large enough that there's always been room for dissent from the popular default.

I've got one Pretzel Logic song on my ballot, but there were four others in my top 30 that just missed the cut.

Katy Lied was the only one that made the Rolling Stone top 100 albums list back in the late 80s.

though they wrote something like-- we could have picked any of their albums, because they're all basically the same

I look at all the Pretzel Logic indifference in this thread and I'm glad I've got it at #1 and #2.

― clemenza, Thursday, March 20, 2014 12:18 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, this. I think there's maybe 2 PL songs that didn't make my ballot. It's easily my favorite Dan record.

"I Got the News" getting 0 votes in the Aja poll is a wrong that needs to be righted

"I Got The News" is great but i totally get why it is the least popular song on Aja by default of all the other ones being more screamingly amazing

I love how "I Got the News" just plays as the credits roll on the VH1 Classic Albums documentary.

Brooooooooooooadwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay Duchesssssssssssssssssssssss / DARling if you ONly knew

^up there with "here come those santa ana winds again" if you are being real with yourself

also drums probably second only to the horn break in "Aja"

"I Got The News" is the "My Rival" of Aja.

and "my rival" is occasionally my favorite song on gaucho

definitely their best lyric *ducks*