Polled At Last: STEELY DAN - ILM Artist poll #50

awesome to see my first place tied for fourth!

gah Big Ears kind of screwed me on getting a ballot in for this one by cutoff date but thats what you get for procrastinating. will root for my picks on the sidelines though, v v stoked for this.

I submitted a lyrics ballot but my picks are not included above, so I just wanted to make a special shout out to my #1:

The milk truck eased into my space
Somebody screamed somewhere

^^^ best lyrics

um...I got a confirmation mail but judging by that list my lyrics ballot wasn't counted

this is an outrage

It looks like the whole of "Gaucho" made the lyrics list.

don't want this great of-the-time post to get buried in the old thread:

My first poll! I couldn't pass this one up. The first six albums came out when I was in high school and college, and the rock radio station in Pittsburgh honestly played every single song from those six albums. It was like those albums were nothing but singles.
I saw them in 1974, they opened for the Beach Boys. Musically, they were tremendous, of course, but what made the biggest impression on me was how grouchy they seemed. I was 17 and a freshman in college, and my university was across the street from the arena and the hotel where all the bands stayed, and we'd always stop over at the hotel after the show to gawk and see if we could get a hello out of the bands, but we didn't go over there to say hello to Steely Dan. We knew that if they said anything to us, it would be mean, lol.
"Can't Buy a Thrill" is so underrated, you have to know what it was like to hear that in 1972 when it first came out, how different it was and what an impact it made, at least on my ears.

[...]
FFS this was hard.

― Sandy, Sunday, March 23, 2014 2:26 AM

Isn't the Do It Again line
"Now you swear and kick and beg us
That you're not a gamblin' man
Then you find you're back in Vegas
With a handle in your hand"

Always liked that he pronounced "beg us" to rhyme with Vegas.

yep, also "Drive west on Sunset, to the sea".

Sandy's post (quoted above) was great. I wouldn't quite rank seeing Steely Dan in '72 with Dylan in '66 or the Velvets in '67 or the Rolling Stones in '72, but--well, you get the idea.

are we getting any track results today

you know that the coming is so close at hand / you feel all right

*vibes solo*

*tomorrow, the razor boy comes for my ballot*

POLLing a fool would say that

Up on the hill
Hurry up Bee OK
That's what we say

haha

what is hungry reggae?

i mean, besides being an aphrodisiac, what is it?

Dem belly not so full?

I'm working an event where a high school choir instructor is getting a music educator award, and the video package about him features a pretty nifty vocal arrangement of "Peg"

Bummed that Bowie (whom I love) beat out SD--don't think I've ever been so jones'd for a poll result!

Dude, it was Bowie. I mean, has Steely Dan even been to outer space?

Weekends on All Things Considered continues its "Why Music Matters" series with music from the heavens, as chosen by astronaut Stan Love.

"In space, every day is an important day of work," Love says. But when he was sent up to the space station to drop off and pick up crew members, the returning station crew member asked, "Dudes, where are the tunes?"

Suddenly, the shuttle mid-deck is filled with Steely Dan and "some other kind of old-guy music, since we're largely old guys here," Love says. All the lights were turned off in the cabin as the shuttle flew across "the cloud tops at 17,000 miles per hour, so [the Earth is] always spinning underneath you, scrolling past.

xp imagining Becker-Fagen floating in a space capsule is makin' me chuckle over here

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/202469main_sl3-jsc2007e21208.jpg

^^ Stan Love

all the stars come out at night

Stteely Dan Love

damn i fucked that up

Can we be shown gauchos + Stan Love?

You'll have to baig us.

sleeve and clemenza, thank you for the shout-out! I am new here and that makes me feel very welcome.

And clemenza, I saw the Stones in 72, too. I was 16. Got my driver's license that morning, went to see the Stones and opening act Stevie Wonder that night. That was a good day.

shocked that 'california! tumbles into the sea!' didn't make the lyrics rundown, this poll has already lost all credibility.

^^We're all too busy smoking with the boys upstairs to notice/vote.

i considered "california tumbles into the sea" but ultimately rejected it after deciding warren zevon had said it better.

Stones and opening act Stevie Wonder

why even go on living after seeing that? i mean, at that point, you're pretty much done, aren't you?

xp otm, with the motel standing and all

And clemenza, I saw the Stones in 72, too. I was 16. Got my driver's license that morning, went to see the Stones and opening act Stevie Wonder that night. That was a good day.

― Sandy, Wednesday, April 2, 2014 5:46 PM (36 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

welcome Sandy, and I am SO jealous of you! I think if I could time travel to one show it would be '72 Stones and Stevie

That was a good day.

Hall of Fame understatement.

As Bee OK pointed out to me in his confirmation email I accidentally only voted for 19 SD songs, but I never got back to him with my number 20, which was "King of the World". So when the tracks ultimately roll out just imagine it has 12 more points. Wonder if it'll need the boost?

Also, any world that I'm welcome to is one where "Beg us" rhymes with "Vegas". I don't know where y'all come from.

king of the world is a cool song and could have made the bottom of my 20 on a different day

if "Dirty Work" were Steely Dan's only song, Sandy's post about seeing the dan wouldn't be awesome. it wouldn't make sense. "Dirty Work" tears down my entire image of becker and fagen as genius assholes bc I know fagen's not singing due to insecurity. For this and other reasons, I move that "Dirty Work" be stricken from the poll.

Isn't the Do It Again line
"Now you swear and kick and beg us
That you're not a gamblin' man
Then you find you're back in Vegas
With a handle in your hand"

― nickn, Wednesday, April 2, 2014 9:48 AM (6 hours ago)

Thanks. I voted that line and apparently had it wrong this whole time. The real first line is even better! Aside from the badass lyrics themselves I've always loved how they kick straight back into this verse after the solos and windchimes.

dirty work rules

those who voted for "Dirty Work" will be given the option to transfer their vote to either "Your Gold Teeth" or "Your Gold Teeth II." if one already voted for one gold teeth but not the other, the vote shall be automatically given to the gold tooth without a vote. if one already voted for both gold teeth, well this is called money bags. So: copy this to your status and money will arrive within 4 days... based on Chinese Feng Shui. The one who does not copy will be without money.

otm

i agree with Alfred's rankings but would also agree with a different ILXor's completely different rankings. my ranking of Steely Dan albums tbh:

1. the one of the first seven that I'm playing at the moment
1b: (tied) the remaining six from that group
3: everything must go
4: two against nature.

Yeah there's no wrong answers here but my ranking is something like this:

1. Aja or Gaucho depending on mood
3. Countdown
4-7. The other '70s ones in some order with Pretzel Logic in last place (it's a classic but I think the second half is relatively weak)
8-9. The two '00s ones (have never been able to get into these)

omar otm

Katy Lied always number one for me, can understand your diffrentrankings since your souls are dead etc.

otm -- Steely Dan fans

Happy Dan Day, y’all. RIP Walter

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SsDWQsEgsqg

Just under 5 hours to get Babylon Sisters across the finish line

Qualifier 64!

1 Roxy Music! https://t.co/MkrBGspvVb
2 Steely Dan! https://t.co/BxjQIGI5vX
3 Robert Palmer! https://t.co/Pc9h8kVMiD
4 John Lennon! https://t.co/iw7xbSyiS4

— World Cup Of 1980 (@peoples_pop) November 15, 2020

The Guardian ranks its top 20 Steely Dan songs.

"Peg" is an honourable number one. Nice to see "Your Gold Teeth II", the only "deep track" from the first four albums to get a mention.

"Any Major Dude" is ranked way, way too low.

There's definitely a few 'later' ones on there that I wish were replaced with better tracks from the first four albums (and "Any Major Dude" would probably be top ten for me, maybe even top five) but yes, very nice to see "Your Gold Teeth II." One of my favorite guitar solos on any Steely Dan track.

Much like any Steely Dan album out of the first seven being a legitimate pick for their best, it’s hard to argue with any song from those albums making a top twenty list (I mean ok I might think you were insane if you slipped in East St Louis Toodle-oo at #20 but it is a fun cover.)

Along with the bias towards the later records, it's a little absurd that they feel they have to apologize for the "roughness" of "Show Biz Kids", like you'll spill your latte if you'll hear a little distortion.

IIRC, AOR radio back in the 70s deleted the word "fuck" from that song.

This is not a bad list, but I prefer ILM's top 20. "Peg" seems wrong to have as #1 - its a great song but its kind of Steely Dan lite.

Michael McDonald intoning "foooreign movie" notwithstanding.

IIRC, AOR radio back in the 70s deleted the word "fuck" from that song

did aor radio back in the 70s ever actually play that song? but, yeah, if they did, there's zero chance a commercial radio station in the 70s would have knowingly aired that word in any context.

I love "Peg" but I agree. I'd sooner put Deacon Blues at #1 but more likely much further down.

did aor radio back in the 70s ever actually play that song?

I definitely heard it when I was a kid in Denver, and there were only two places I could have heard it: KBPI or KAZY, the two competing AOR stations back then.

Re: "Showbiz Kids," apparently on the old (1985?) CD master or the early 1990s remaster of "Show Biz Kids" there is a 1.75 second edit that was inserted at around 1:02. This segment was sourced from a different analog tape transfer than the rest of the track. (It features a few different guitar notes and the female choir is missing 'NOT' in 'Not Wages' on the 1985 version.)

I bring it up because if they wanted it to get radio play and decided to edit the master to make that possible, I wonder if this caused that weird anomaly on those CD's?

Was it "not wages"? I always heard "lost wages," or maybe "Las Wages."

definitely "lost wages"

I thought it was lost wages, but I just deferred to whoever discovered the info above.

two places I could have heard it: KBPI or KAZY, the two competing AOR stations back then

a toast to the classic days of classic rock!

"KBPI rocks the Rockies"

I'm glad to see this thread bumped with Dan-related content, instead of the one with the weirdly long stupid quote that gets truncated mid-phrase and

Steely Dan: "Steely Dan's name has been popping up as a hip musical crush. Remember, this glossy bop-pop was the indifferent aristocracy to punk rock's stone-throwing in the late 70's. People fought

also that thread title seems to imply that Steely Dan is saying that quote.

I hate being commanded to remember something

also that thread title seems to imply that Steely Dan is saying that quote.

Could be from a Walter Becker mid-show monologue.

the best part of review where quote came from is the contrast between the out-of-touch boomer Steely Dan fan and the young, hip kid listening to the fucking Fragile

The Fragile: the Gaucho of Industrial Alternative

ha, that's at least kind of plausible. I though the young, hip kid was listening to Fragile by Yes!

that dicrescenzo review remains so breathtakingly dumb, my second least favorite review from Pitchfork

The Fragile is now as old as Aja was at the time of the review, but nobody bothers to make fun of aging Gen Xers except ourselves.

i do wish NiN had spent a little more time working the vein of glossy bop-pop, tho

I hurt myself today
In that ditch out in the valley
That they're digging just for me

DiCrescenzo an equal opportunity misanthrope - he gave The Fragile a 2.0 five months before he wrote the Dan review!

You go back, Jack, do it again
Bow down before the one you serve

The Cuervo Gold
the fine Columbian
Make me want to fuck you like an animal

When Black Friday comes
I'm gonna dig myself a hole
Black as your soul
I'd rather die than give you control.

On the water down in New Orleans
My baby's the pearl of the quarter
She's a charmer like you've never seen
Singing: "starfuckers incorporated"

i love the other thread title. "People fought" cracks me up