steeley dan vs patti smith

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picked up the steeley dan album with showbiza kids on but didnt buy patti smith groups "waves" - was this a mistake - should i go back and grab it - is it at all like horses

i love the steeley dan album tho

― born clippy, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Not even close -- Steely Dan.

― Andy K, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

You didn't make a mistake.

― Andrew L, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

cool cheers guys - i figured it didnt have fred sonic on it so i didnt bother - very impressed by the dan tho - whatis that de la soul sample and which album is it on

― born clippy, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Interesting. Not so long ago critics tended to be pretty contemptuous of SD, implicitly a band loved only by musos and unreformed hippies. Or was that a British thing?

Anyway nice to see evidence this is changing. All the SD albums before Aja are great. Aja and Gaucho I like less though they each have one great track (Deacon Blues and Babylon Sister).

― ArfArf, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

'Eye Know' by De La Soul samples the Steely Dan track 'Peg', from the alb 'Aja' - but if you like 'Countdown to Ecstasy', I'd shunt backwards and pick up 'Can't Buy A Thrill' next, 'cos its v. similar and maybe even a bit better.

All Saints sampled 'The Fez' for 'Never Ever'...

― Andrew L, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

i'll check em out

― born clippy, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

"Aja and Gaucho I like less though they each have one great track (Deacon Blues and Babylon Sister)."

AJA has more than one good song on it.Black Cow,Home At Last,Peg & I Got The News all fit imo.

― Spongebob, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Arf Arf, I don't know how you can not consider "Peg" a good song, but I guess individual taste is always full of surprises.

Yes, I vote Steely Dan. Plus they never published any bad poetry books, as far as I know.

― DeRayMi, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Aren't these records designed to cancel each other out, sort've like Supertramp vs. the Stooges or Beat Happening vs. Black Flag?

Steely Dan = Highly literate, xenophobic musos with unapologetic jazz leanings and studio know-how, making music designed for Manhattan divorcee bars and aesthetes in corduroy blazers.

Patti Smith = Arguably literate, insufferably earnest 'poet'/ 'priestess' often mistaken for iconoclastic stormbringer as opposed to actual status as groupie-made-good.

― Alex in NYC, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

music designed for Manhattan divorcee bars and aesthetes in corduroy blazers

Once again, I have to object to the stereotyping of Steely Dan's audience. I liked their hits well enough as a little kid. I never much liked any Patti Smith I heard, even during the period when I would have been most sympathetic to her music.

― DeRayMi, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I've gushed here before about how much Pattii Smith means to me; I'm not going to do it again now. Suffice to say I like Steely Dan, but I LOVE Patti Smith. "Wave" isn't her best LP, but it's good. The only one that has Fred on it is "Dream of Life", so I wouldn't make that my criteria for which one to pick up.

― Sean, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Aren't these records designed to cancel each other out

does music do that - shit dont look at my collection its one big mess of negs and positives

― born clippy, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Good point, born clippy, and any record collection worth perusing through would have to have such contradictions, as otherwise it would be rather monochromatic. That said, however, your inital question straddled a fence between two extremes. Two albums that serve entirely different purposes, sate different needs, appeal to different moods/ sensibilities. Essentially, it's not the one's better or worse than the other, just different.

― Alex in NYC, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I know that Peg is liked by a lot of people. The general critical reputation of Aja and even Gaucho is much higher than it used to be. But apart from the two tracks I mentioned these albums still leave me cold.

The vocabulary that used to be used to criticise these albums ("over- produced", "soul-less", "too glossy") sounds so old-fashioned now that I hesitate to use it - except that it still seems to describe my response to the music.

― ArfArf, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Wave is great and pretty and 80s with wide open synths.

― Sterling Clover, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Sterl is right, you should own both albums. Though if you like Horses and Radio Ethiopia you may think Waves is too mellow, but the tunes are great, and the intensity is there, just held in.

― nickn, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Aren't "Frederick" and "Dancing Barefoot" on Waves? These are amazing songs!

― Simon, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Now let's do: Steelye Span v. Ewald Spiss.

― DeRayMi, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

It's Wave, no "s" btw.

― Sean, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I got the new Patti Smith boxset, and it's pretty dull. I've had "Countdown to Ecstacy" for probably ten years, and I still can't get "Pearl of the Quarter" out of my head.

Patti = unreasonably overrated The Dan = unfairly maligned

― J, Saturday, 27 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

unreasonably overrated? radio Ethiopia to you!

― Andrew, Sunday, 28 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Yah, I've heard it and I'm not impressed.

― J, Tuesday, 30 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

"Fuck radio Ethiopia man, I'm radio Brooklyn"

― Andrew L, Tuesday, 30 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

sez andrew l as he looks for a vein that isn't collapsed

― shlongdong, Tuesday, 30 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I've done far too much 'Patti Smith', it's true...

― Andrew L, Tuesday, 30 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

steely dan hands down.. it's very clear from reading the above earlier- I guess I should say past comments- comments all about this whole steely patti thing- that this is clearly without a single doubt the case. however....

― damo, Tuesday, 30 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

twelve years pass...

What a weird matchup. Steely Dan. Though Smith's memoir is fantastic.

― Pentenema Karten, Saturday, 25 October 2014 07:02 (nine years ago) link

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