Steely Dan - The Royal Scam poll

fez

caves of altamira

the white man is crazy

This is easily "Haitian" Divorce"

My least favorite album: clavinets and talk boxes hither and thither, songs that run too long for no reason. After loving SD for years, I still couldn't hum "Everything You Did" and "The Royal Scam."

"Don't Take Me Alive" over "Kid Charlemagne" in a photo finish.

Is there gas in the car??????

yes there's gas in the car!!

when there wasn't even any hollywood

how some folks felt about "Show Biz Kids" = how I feel about "Don't Take Me Alive" x1000 -- those lyrics deserve better

I think this is the hardest SD album for me to call, favorites-wise, very consistent with no real strong favorites or un-favorites. will probably vote for either "Caves" or the title track or "Sign In Stranger" or "Haitian Divorce" or...yeah you can see where this is going.

xpost yeah "Don't Take Me Alive" was one I liked as a kid but can't really stand now.

Don't Take Me Alive, which I didn't vote for, has one of the top five solos though...isn't it Rick Derringer shredding?

kid charlemagne

Wonchu Sign in Strang'

This one's a no-brainer: Kid Charlemagne

Caves

Clavinets rule, dude.

Indeed, The Clavinets of Altamira

Actually, I wouldn't say this is my favorite SD album, but I have sometimes thought that it's the pinnacle of their sound: it sounds sparkly and polished without the sterility that sometimes dogs Aja and Gaucho.

best sd clav song is night by night

my fave SD album. am not voting as i cant decide between 'haitian divorce', 'dont take me alive' and 'caves of altamira'. 'kid charlemagne' is about as funky as they got too. the whole set is brilliant not a duff track on it.

ok decided to go for "Sign In Stranger." YOU ZOMBIE!

The Royal Scam is the first Steely Dan record that doesn't exhibit significant musical progress from its predecessor,
This line from AMG is total bullshit right? Royal sounds nothing like Katy. It seems like the album where they beacame the Steely Dan that people think of when they hear the name. Katy Lied still sounded somewhat like a band playing in a room, while Scam is the fist one to sound like a studio machine firing on all engines.
basically jaymc otm.

for me, it's probably the weakest of the original run of albums. even so, there's lots of strong stuff here. i'm leaning Charlemagne cause it fucking bangs, but i've got a soft spot for caves and haitian divorce.

also "turn up the eagles, the neighbors are listening" A++

Yeah, I never managed to get into that album really.

I think it's their best album...and so does Rickie Lee Jones...and I voted for "The Caves Of Altamira" and "Night By Night" is their best clavi song...and...oh i forgot

as a collection it seems unfocused but there some real gems in it. but "Kid Charlemagne" changed my fucking life for real, some of the best narrative on Fagen's resume. 'Clean this mess up else we'll all wind up in jail/those test tubes, and the scale' one of the all-time couplets.

I don't find the album too bad, but there are some single tracks dragging it down considerably. "The Fez" and the title track both get too repetitive and monotonous in the long run.

This is my second favorite SD album -and their most rockin' album since "Countdown". No bad songs on it. Probably "Sign In Stranger" would be my pick.

Kid Charlemagne has one of those Fagen idées fixes - or whatever you want to call them - "Careful what you carry." As in "I can see from what you carry that you come from Barrytown."

That and the letters, the shoes. Has anyone made a list of his repeated lyrical tropes?

haha Geir and I agree!

this album kicks so much collctive bottom.

Kind of a throwback to Ecstasy, it seems to me, with the longish jammy tracks, and the hotshit solos standing out a bit more against the repetitiousness (which I don't mind at all, but I don't mind "Show Biz Kids" either).

"Kid Charlemagne" comes real close, but I wish Larry Carlton's guitar licks were a little bit less tasteful - "Skunk" Baxter-style edginess woulda been more appropriate. So I go with "Sign In Stranger". Love that Monkish piano and "Do you like to take a yo-yo for a ride?"

kid charlemagne.boring answer,but true.

Went with "Royal Scam" because it's such a phenomenal and focused lyric, and a true one as far as the lie so many people were sold as they entered America.

"Sign in Stranger" is one of the very few Dan songs that I never remember how it goes; like "Razor Boy" and "Everything You Did" and "Boston Rag" and "Rose Darling."

Kid Charlemagne has one of those Fagen idées fixes - or whatever you want to call them - "Careful what you carry." As in "I can see from what you carry that you come from Barrytown."

That and the letters, the shoes. Has anyone made a list of his repeated lyrical tropes?

I'm no expert but didn't Walter Fagen write a shitload of the Steely Dan lyrics? Maybe even the majority of them?

its the best sd album - a lot of people dont realize this - why because they r dumb i dunno

Yeah, Becker wrote a lot of those lyrics.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

this is kinda like the katy lied poll for me where i wanted to vote something other than "dr. wu" but it just seemed too perfect a song...

...so anyway, kid charlamagne, i'm boring.

if i could vote again - caves

Haitian Divorce, particularly for the "Now we dolly back/Now we fade to black -> soaking wah solo" bit, which is a bit of a trick, yeah, but it gets me every time.

its the best sd album - a lot of people dont realize this - why because they r dumb i dunno

just wanna point out that this opinion is insane

best Dan records are aja and ecstasy

see now there's a man who know what's up

"katy lied" comes very very close to those two also as does "gaucho" which is the one about which the most convincing "no, see, this one is actually the best" case can be built

I'd put Royal Scam on a par with Katy Lied, which is a tier below Aja and Countdown, but above everything else (in my personal estimation).

Why the Gaucho love, j)hn?

That is to say, I've never had love for that album outside of Babylon Sisters, Hey 19, and the one about heroin that gets played on all the smooth jazz stations.

I mean, Glamour Profession would've been great minus two or three minutes and if Fagan's voice wasn't shot to shit.

Yeah I have no use for that album after track 1. Really I even like the two albums from this decade more than Gaucho.

I'd rep for every song on Gaucho actually and have no idea what you're talking about in re: Fagan's voice on it; it was fine then, fine a couple of years later on The Nightfly, etc - what do you mean by "shot"? he's got the same range, same essential timbre, etc.

trying to think top of my head about gaucho:
time out of mind, straight classic, especially the time-sig change breakdown
glamour profession, almost too nuanced, but great
title track, holy fuck, just fabulous albeit ripped off from keith jarrett
third world man, would have fit better on royal scam but still good
hey 19, song needs no defending from me
ditto babylon sisters

all gravy - the album seems even more worked-over than aja, which is its only real weakness; it threatens to go sterile, sounds like they're trying to hard to out-do the intensity & complexity of aja. but it's still fantastic.

this was all talked to death on the Gaucho thread

I'm going to re-listen to all 7:30 of Glamour Profession and get back to you on that.

man now I got that "time out of mind" breakdown stuck in my head, so incredible

xpost: I'll check that out.

all aboard
the Carib Cannibal
off to Barbados
just for the ride
Jack with his radar
Stalking the dread moray eel
At the wheel
With his Eurasian bride
--

good luck unpacking all that

I mean the complaint against it, for me, is that it's so dense as to be opaque. I can dig that. but it's a natural progression from everything they've been doing up to that point.

Oh man, lyrically I have nothing against it! But I think that Fagan's just at his nasaliest here to a fault.

It's too late for me to post coherent thoughts on Gaucho, but briefly: no album I've heard in the last five years has terrified me so much. I can't even describe the tonal colors of the title track: its mockery of the Gaucho is so tender, merciless, and empathetic that it belies the Dan's reputations as cynics. There's the difference between cynicism and irony.

John, among others, has posted great things on Gaucho in its own thread.

and the lilt of "Third World Man." I always imagine this crab sinking slowly to the bottom of the sea, as thin layer upon layer of sand buries him.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

SEE THE GLORY

justice is served, although I'm surprised by zero votes for "Green Earrings" - that's a solid tune with some really nice breezy combo work and one of the most hermetic lyrics in the SD canon

yeah, "my rival" is the only track I can't get into on gaucho. still, I probably rate countdown and gaucho as my faves these days.

I used to not be feelin' gaucho/nightfly much, but now I love em both. probably more to do with my personal trajectory re: the dan than anything. mostly worked my way through the back catalog chronologically since just about each album is slicker than the last and it was a little bit of a problem for me at first.

The Nightfly is wonderful for entirely different reasons.

gaucho was a dead last for me (of the first 8) for years, but its stock has risen considerably as i've gotten older. top tier w/ Aja, Katy & Countdown now.

Scam's the one that kinda leaves me cold these days, even though it's still v v awesome.

Didn't Gaucho win the overall SD album poll?

no and no:
POLL: Best Steely Dan album
Best Steely Dan/Donald Fagen/Walter Becker Album

first 7, that is

this album is so deep. i love it.

it's like they made a whole album of deep cuts

totally... how deep is the rhodes all over this album

seems like it gets an unfair rap as their "least great" album or whatever

It's always been my favorite.

Christ but what an astonishing album.

did we all know that the cover art for the royal scam was originally created for a van morrison album? seems important, somehow.

the van morrison album (which was never released) was supposed to be called Mechanical Bliss. seems important, too, somehow.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/777bb5ecd0620c09e156ec3ec8bcac8b/tumblr_mmsrebP52I1qzy30io1_500.png

Somehow I did not know that. Neat.

here's a big thing about it (and a speculative version of that unreleased van LP)
http://www.themidnightcafe.org/?p=4119

also funny, via wiki: In the liner notes for the 1999 remaster of the album, Fagen and Becker claim it to be "the most hideous album cover of the seventies, bar none (excepting perhaps Can't Buy A Thrill)."

The Chrysler Building:

http://www.cepolina.com/photo/America/New-York/skyscrapers-New-York/5/New-York-Chrysler-building-skyscraper.jpg

http://fineprintnyc.com/images/blog/old-new-york/part-8/1930-Margaret-Bourke-White-Photographs-Chrysler-Building-Views.jpeg

On some days, this is their best.

well I CROSSED my OLD MAN back in OREGAHN, don't take me alive

that's cool that caves got so many votes, what a jam

Green Earrings into Haitian Divorce is just ridiculous

those RINGS OF RARE DESIGN
I remember
the LOOK in your EYE

Lol for the longest time I thought it was the “the rings of Randy’s eyes”

I don't mind

it's like they made a whole album of deep cuts

― any major some dude will tell you (M@tt He1ges0n), Wednesday, November 19, 2008 11:12 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Heh, most OTM post on this thread.

So true

Thanks for the revive - reminded me to pull this out and give it a spin.

Most off-the-money thing about this thread was the zero votes for "Green Earrings".

yeah jesus

GE is great but you’re talking such

I mean there’s no fucking with KC right?

eh, overexposed

I voted "Sign in Stranger" in the original poll, but would gladly vote "Green Earrings" in a rematch. There are at least 6 songs on here I could see myself voting for at any given time.

Agree

I've said it before somewhere, but I love how the title track sounds like a Norman Whitfield production.

caves of altamira has such a huge, lush-sounding hook, odd it’s only been sampled once afaict, by some italian rappers

Last time they played Don't Take me Alive in Portland everyone cheered after each instance of OREGAHN, great fun, great show maybe the best I've ever seen

Also yeah Green Earrings thoroughly robbed, nice to see reps for Haitian Divorce tho

Lol for the longest time I thought it was the “the rings of Randy’s eyes”

― flappy bird, Friday, December 1, 2017 9:42 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I used to think it was "rings of round design" and was confused because surely all rings are of round design?

"sign in stranger" has quietly become my favorite dan song of all time

Yeah except for the outro

Sign in Stranger has always reminded me of Spoon circa Gax5.

Paul Griffin is a hero

finding a new song to obsess over from this record every month or so lol

right now, it's "everything you did."

You were a rollah skatah

you gonna show me later

at the graaahhhhhto
in the greeeeeeasy chair

What a weird song

when she smiles, she says it all

what's a greasy chair?

one that's hard to sit in

at the graaahhhhhto
in the greeeeeeasy chair

― culture of mayordom (voodoo chili), Thursday, January 16, 2020 3:01 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

What a weird song

― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Thursday, January 16, 2020 3:52 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

lmfao otm

Sign in Stranger has always reminded me of Spoon circa Gax5.

I bet Spoon totally Stan for this album. "Green Earrings" is also pretty Spoon-esque. Even all the titles sound like they could be Spoon songs.

SPOON

Still think the second half is the least distinguished suite they recorded.

Crazy talk. The last song is weak but everything else is great.

It’s just that the first half is so loaded that the second pales a bit

green earrings and the royal scam are probably the most inessential tracks on the album - they are to my ears anyway - so it doesn't help side 2

the talk box in "Haitian Divorce" is akin to reading Trump tweets.

omfg green earrings is all time

Green Earrings is a deeply funky groove.

the poll says no

If you want to talk non essentials let’s talk Rose Darling...none of the tracks on Side 2 sink to that level

go to hell

Certainly it’s not their best side, but I’d take it over Side B of Katy Lied or either side of Gaucho.

Certainly it’s not their best side, but I’d take it over Side B of Katy Lied or either side of Gaucho.

― o. nate, Friday, January 17, 2020 11:33 AM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

go to hell

It’s almost as if there are different kinds of Steely Dan fans who like different aspects of their work.

i think it's better than the side b on katy lied also tbh

go to hell

― bidenfan69420 (jim in vancouver),

green earrings has two of the best solos to grace any SD song, plus my fav bernard purdie fill ever leading into solo #1.

lol I just love this bands music so much

yeah I was gonna say lol, Green Earrings has those two guitar solos. not only some of the best in their body of work, maybe some of the best in all of 70s rock... if Band of Gypsys doesn't count.
I mean this is their guitar solo record. Yeah, Haitian
I also once thought of Rose Darling as inessential (like a lesser version of Any World That I'm Welcome To), but it's grown on me. I'd actually argue the back half of this is one of their best sides, and would probably chuck the first side, if only for Kid Charlemagne. that song was licensed and sampled SO MUCH when I was growing up in the 90s and early 00s that when I finally heard it in context, well, I was unable to hear it with fresh ears. it makes me think of cheese commercials and car insurance.

the ‘harmonic movement’ or whatever in the chorus of “rose darling” is phenomenal

You zombie! Be born again my friend.

funny I just listened to this last night. so many hot guitar solos. favorite song is definitely “caves”. love the doominess of the title track.

Thought this was pretty funny.

pic.twitter.com/Sq1nz8JIL2

— Good Steely Dan Takes (@baddantakes) July 28, 2020

I'd watch that.

Anyway, this may be one of my least favorite Steely Dan albums, but the guitar work is pretty excellent - it may be their best showcase for that instrument.

ahh caves... when fagen goes “for you and me we understood” it’s so reassuring, like I’m not crazy for loving music so much lol

Always thought this was a very unusual song for them to have dug up from their old demos and re-recorded in 1976. It's unimaginable on any of the subsequent records.

ive had record player issues for a long time on and off. i now own 4 turntables, 3 of which don't work and languish in my storage space. my wife ordered a new stylus for the functioning player. i went out front of my building to smoke a joint last night. came back in and checked the mail box in the lobby, the stylus had arrived. came in and played the first record to hand - this record - the A side of this just blew me away anew. i think i voted for kid charlemagne on this poll but i think caves of altamira is the one for me now. i still find the B side underpowered but "green earrings" has increased in my estimation

Haitian faux funk

for me, it's probably the weakest of the original run of albums

‘Caves’ is the most upscale piece of music ever recorded...in fact I only wanna become stinking rich to blast it every morning over my buffet breakfast in my mansion in Bel Air

Pretzel Logic is prob. my least fav of the original run--actually, probably Katy Lied--but it's got three of their career best songs, at least.

PL was mostly leftovers and it shows, but yeah it’s the Dan it’s all good

all v good.

KL snuck up on me and might be my second fav after Aja

PL and KL are actually my two favorites. Lyrically, both albums (especially KL) have a better balance between warmth and cynicism. Even the humor feels like a better balance between wryness and corrosiveness. (When Fagen cut The Nightfly, he told Robert Palmer of the NY Times that Becker was usually pushing for more irony and detachment. I'm not sure how much of that can be credited to Becker, but lyrically they probably headed further in that direction with Royal Scam.)

And musically, I think PL and KL are even more engaging. Even with the emphasis more on song craft than stretching out, I think the solos are every bit as memorable as those on Aja's. The solos on "Rikki," "Doctor Wu" and "Gold Teeth II" alone are probably better than anything on Aja, which is not a knock on that album. The Ellington cover on PL feels very appropriate - his most celebrated recordings were those 3-minute 78's of the early '40s, and you can't find a better example of great, concise solos within a larger ensemble. (I should note "Gold Teeth II" on KL is less song-oriented and more about stretching out, so it doesn't fit the mold as well.)

(And to be fair "St Louis Toodle-Oo" was recorded in the '20s and re-done in the '30s, but he continued to work the same basic format for 78's - the early '40s stuff is the peak of that development.)

I just don’t think most of the songs are of the same caliber... and it just doesn’t come together as well and feels like a bit of a step back after the perfection that is Countdown? just one opinion

I bought PL because the '70s wing of rock consensus said it was their best album. I liked it well enough. It took KL and especially CTE to Understand Them. Then Gaucho made me a convert.

"Any Major Dude" and the chorus kicking in on the title song are some of their best moments for sure

I love Countdown. I'm not sure I'd call either one a better album, even though I listen to PL more. Across those first four albums, the band seemed to evolve at a substantial rate, and Countdown and PL feel like very different albums to me. You still have great singles that are more traditional in structure - "My Old School" especially, one of my favorites - but a lot of the best stuff on Countdown isn't like that, beginning with the opener "Bodhisattva." If I try to view it from 1972, I could see it being a shock to a casual fan. The mainstream jazz influence is more apparent, and given the type of fusion that was selling at the time, it might've been pretty amazing to hear a hit rock band combine jazz and rock sensibilities in a different but arguably more accessible way. Granted, it reportedly didn't sell at the time, but a lot of those ideas carried over to PL, and I don't hear anything that's really a step back, more like a refinement that makes getting from Countdown to Aja look more like a logical development.

Royal Scam will always be my sentimental favorite. The last few songs kind of lose steam and the title track goes absolutely nowhere for six-and-a-half minutes but before then, every song is like The Maltese Falcon as directed by William Friedkin – inscrutable mini epics of gritty mid-70s urban drug-fueled paranoia, replete with double crosses, getaway cars and seedy cocktail lounges. Musically it’s the best fusion of their early Denny Dias rock sensibilities and latter day incarnation as the Ramada Inn house band, with surprising horn charts and ensemble vocals, Larry Carlton guitar solos so tasty you can chew them and the finest Chuck Rainey/Victor Feldman/Bernard Purdie porno grooves ever put to vinyl. I love it.

"Any Major Dude" is awesome, it's close to my favorite track on PL next to "Rikki." The title track (and also the LP title alone) is brilliant, moreso now I'm sad to say.

As much as I like The Nightfly and Aja, Gaucho has never been a favorite Dan album. "Hey Nineteen" is GREAT, "Time Out of Mind" is excellent, especially live (I wish Fagen had recorded an extended solo for the original album, his solos on it are usually a highlight of Dan's later concerts). But there's something lacking about the rest. When Fagen talked about moving on and doing something on his own, his reasons for doing so feel pretty understandable after hearing Gaucho - it sounds very insular compared to The Nightfly.

xp. bernard purdie is so damn good

The insularity is what makes Gaucho their peak for me. This is the sound and sensibility they'd been building toward. I come close to crying only twice listening to SD's catalog: the title track and "Third World Man."

my v important ranking of SD title songs:

"Gaucho">"Aja">>>"Pretzel Logic">>>>>>>>>"Royal Scam"

(and i still really dig "RS")

I'd nestle "The Nightfly" between "PL" & "RS"

pic.twitter.com/iYy2NofI9g

— Z. Doom 👑 (@World0fEcho) February 1, 2021

i never knewwwwwww you
you were a ROLLLA SKATA
you're gonna SHOW me LATE-A

A terrible bridge to a weak song!

I used to find that song off-putting but now I love every second of it

Turn up the Eagles
the neighbors are listening

A terrible bridge to a weak song!

― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, February 10, 2021 11:42 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

if by "terrible" you mean great, and by "bridge" you mean "chorus," and by "weak" you mean "also great," then yes.

I don't hear any choruses in that song, just the verses and the bridge played twice.

Should have had "Here at the Western World" on The Royal Scam in its place.

lots of SD songs from katy lied onward don't really have bridges. the solo section usually has chords distinct enough from the rest of the song to play that role.

there are exceptions, obviously ("sign in stranger," and i guess "don't take me alive" has an instrumental bridge)

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2981/5924/products/df9da21b7b6e58956761b8841434a07d_2048x2048.jpg

Should have had "Here at the Western World" on The Royal Scam in its place.

― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, February 10, 2021 1:46 PM (thirty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

"Here At the Western World" is definitely the superior song (and actually in my personal top 5 SD songs over anything on the Royal Scam), but I think they were right to leave it off the album because it doesn't really fit the Royal Scam vibe. It feel more Katy Lied-ish to me, kind of their last shot at that sound before cranking up the slickness and funk factor.

Yeah heavy KL vibes on that one

Actually I'm kind of torn about "...Western World", because it's such a great song that it deserves a place on a proper album, but at the same time its orphan status kind of enhances its already cryptic and mysterious aura.

I can see that point of view, but I think Everything You Did is the least typical song on RS anyway. It's like an uninspired takeoff on Bad Sneakers.

In terms of tempo and instrumentation, not lyrics.

"not as good as bad sneakers" is a quality "everything you did" shares with 99.5% of all other music, so

The Royal Scam the song is way underrated here. Incredibly heavy and funky in its own way. I love the background vocals and muted horns. Maybe one of their bleakest and least funny lyrics, just hammering home the emptiness and unfulfilled promises of the American Dream for immigrants. The fact that it doesn't go anywhere is kind of the point, imo: The last lyric is the first line repeated. The cycle continues.

Everything you did also great, the pop clarity breakthrough of I NEVER KNEW YOU, the Eagles line referenced above, great funny/gross lyrics. Am I alone in thinking Sign in Stranger is the weak link here?

"sign in stranger" is glorious for paul griffin's dancing piano and elliott randall's gorgeous outro guitar solo.

"the fez" is the obvious weak link, tho i appreciate its oddness and wouldn't remove it off the album

"dont take me alive" got played on the local classic rock radio as much as "reelin" or "hey 19" when i was a kid. i guess it was still dj's choice there before clear channel bought up everything. i was surprised to learn later that it wasn't a single.

Whitey otm re: The Royal Scam title track. It's maybe the only song I would describe as "plodding" in a good way. For me the weak link is "Don't Take Me Alive." The verses and guitar work are awesome, but the chorus has always struck me as uncharacteristically clunky, particularly "Well I crossed my old man back in Oregon/Don't take me alive"

Always felt that the absent 'bastard' in Everything You Did could be the narrator from Dirty Work.

lol nice.

narrator of Deacon Blues could be the Dirty Work guy 5 cynical years down the line

The Royal Scam the song is way underrated here. Incredibly heavy and funky in its own way. I love the background vocals and muted horns. Maybe one of their bleakest and least funny lyrics, just hammering home the emptiness and unfulfilled promises of the American Dream for immigrants. The fact that it doesn't go anywhere is kind of the point, imo: The last lyric is the first line repeated. The cycle continues.

It's not as slow or weighty, but "Charlie Freak" is another equally direct, compassionate song about subjects mired in drug addiction.

i remember
the rings of rare design!

i remember!
that look in your eye

yeah I love that the album considered the biggest bummer in their catalog has The Fez on it

xps

My neighbor has just come out for the evening and has blasted "Sign-In Stranger" and now "Don't Take Me Alive".

Now they've moved over to "Deacon Blues".

I would have thought the first song was an invitation for you to come over but the second song confuses the message

No confusion, the songs do indeed spell out the whole message. They're just crazy.

Really feeling this lately. The playing on this album is so sick. The horns on caves of altamira are some of the best, the interplay as the saxophone weaves in and out. The guitar solo on green earrings. The talkbox guitar solo on haitian divorce. The Fez coming on like love unlimited orchestra as interpreted by some kind of disco android. All the apocalyptic sci fi imagery in the lyrics. So great.

For whatever reason -- and it could be as simple as "Kid Charlemagne" being an all-time banger -- this is the album I return to most often. There are other Dan LPs where the tracklist looks better on paper, but something about this one just works. Even the title track, which is not an enjoyable piece of music in any other context, is a fitting album closer, along the lines (no pun intended) of "Mass Production."

One of my top 1 or 2 by them, depending on the day.

pic.twitter.com/t7Dtr8kvvX

— I.G.Y. azalea (@HaitianDvorce) May 11, 2023

people who do it without the fez on vs. person who never does it without the fez on

My 12 yr old, who loves steely Dan now, will just randomly go around singing the fez

Saw a Steely Dan tribute band for free at a local park recently. Couldn’t believe they played “The Fez,” which I love.

“Green Earrings” isn’t my favorite track, but I really dig it.

"Don't Take Me Alive" came in surprisingly low. I'd rate it just below "Kid Charlemagne," and on some days even above it.

Steely Dan really does not have duffer tunes, so their LPs especially in the first run are all good. That first three tunes out of the gate on this one is pretty hot.

When I first started listening to the Dan way back as a teen, I had the Greatest Hits and Aja for a long time. At some point in early 90s I got this one and Countdown to Ecstasy on Lp same day for a couple bucks each. I liked Countdown but listened to the Royal Scam A Lot in many different states of buzz.

‘Caves of Altamira’ really was fascinating to me on its origins.

For whatever reason, Countdown was both my late night drinking and my early morning hangover and shower album in college. Royal Scam was never widely listened to in my group. Now, I think it's one of their strongest from start to finish.

Honestly I don't think there's an incorrect answer to the question, "which of Steely Dan's first seven albums is your favorite?"

"Avalon."

"Minute by Minute"

“Althea”

i was sitting in the passenger seat of my friend's car one time and Steely Dan came on the classic rock station. He remarked that his dad used to play him Steely Dan records when he was a little kid and he always imagined them as a bunch of investment bankers. It struck him as the kind of music investment bankers make. i think he thought they were kinda lame.

had another friend in high school who took jazz guitar lessons, he was into this album at the time. i always think of him scatting along to the amazing Larry Carlton solo in Kid Charlemagne when i hear this, or mouthing the words "and there wasn't even any Hollywood" with a big grin on his face. i could've posted that in the time and place thread but here we are.

the Kid Charlemagne/Caves if Altamira one-two punch takes it tho.

but you and me, we understood