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

when i did my tracks all of aja was in the top 25, so it seemed like a reasonable #1

i didn't vote in the albums poll, but it would've been:

1) Aja
2) The Royal Scam
3) Gaucho
4) Countdown to Ecstasy
5) Katy Lied
6) The Nightfly - Donald Fagen
7) Can't Buy a Thrill
8) Pretzel Logic

My list:

1.Aja
2.Gaucho
3.Katy Lied
4.The Royal Scam
5.The Nightfly
6.Pretzel Logic

i was going with a Top 50 for poll #50 but asked pplains if he could add 10 more. so we are going to get a bonus and do a Top 60 rundown instead. after we do the bonus 10 i will give the reason. don't want to give away anything right now.

i actually have something to do, so this will kick it off. i should be back in about an hour.

again thanks pplains for these amazing images. i will let him explain his inspiration.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-UN7yeQkPAAc/Uz2grtF6HsI/AAAAAAAAAF8/ICcMmOO2KlY/w640-h320-no/Monkey+In+Your+Soul.jpg

60. Monkey In Your Soul
From: Pretzel Logic
Released: February 20, 1974
72 Points, 3 Votes

Countdown being robbed is the only real shock to me

Favorite thing about "Monkey" is the way it opens always makes me think the 1 is on a different beat than it really is and I try to maintain my rhythmic disorientation as far into the song as I can

i'm team pretzel but was never a big fan of "monkey." #60 seems about right. but i am already liking these images very much. based on one image.

I love Monkey, a spirited throwaway saying goodbye to them doing throwaways.

all right i am so psyched for these images ALREADY oh man

also great way to start the countdown

to ecstacy

"Monkey in Your Soul," like "With a Gun" and "Through With Buzz" was so determinedly abstruse on first listen that its oddness was itself attractive. PL is unique in the Dan catalog in that regard.

Little late, but here was my album poll:

Countdown to Ecstasy
Aja
Katy Lied
Pretzel Logic
Can't Buy a Thrill
The Royal Scam
Gaucho

gaucho
aja
cant buy a thrill
the royal scam
countdown to ecstacy
katy lied
pretzel logic

(xp) "with a gun" may have got my vote if we did a "least favorite SD song" subpoll. not sure if it's abstruse or just weirdly generic folk-rock. i think the only thing that's odd about it is how different it sounds than anything else in the SC catalog.

"through with buzz" is definitely abstruse and odd, though. the one-line verse is a good concept.

yeah, "through with buzz" is very strange and awesome.

strings in "through with buzz" are all time

maybe he's a fairy!

what other tracks have strings? there's 'FM'...

yeah i like how they brought out the strings for a track that's 1.5 minutes long

And it hasn't even placed yet!

Bee OK? You out there?

probably checking to see if there's gas in the car

there is

I didn't vote for albums, much more interested in songs, but for what it's worth: Pretzel Logic was a more (maybe much more, not sure) acclaimed album in its day than Aja. I'd like to see the Creem reviews; Christgau and Rolling Stone definitely favor Pretzel Logic, and NME voted Pretzel Logic album of the year. It's not surprising that Pretzel Logic would finish second here; Aja finishing first is the surprise.

Can't Buy A Thrill, Aja, and Pretzel Logic got four stars in the RS Record Guide -- both red and blue editions, both written by Dave Marsh (who, in the red edition, called them "Not the greatest American rock band...but [they] remain unquestionably the weirdest.")

Gaucho got zero stars in the blue guide.

Gaucho had a bad rep for quite a while, basically "Aja gone to rot." It got slowly rehabilitated in the mid-late '90s?

One of my favorite ILM threads: Why do people rag on Steely Dan's "Gaucho" so much?

when I was reading album guides as a teenager it seemed like a unanimous opinion that Gaucho was worthless, I was pleasantly surprised at the existence of a vocal pro-Gaucho faction when I started reading ilx

xp to clemenza. that is very interesting because I only ever encountered the "aja is the best" narrative when getting into SD. I was born in 1985, though. aja has had the doc (which I watched) and the 33 1/3 book (which I just bought) since then.

No, I mean, I came to Steely Dan through Phish. The Phishheads who turned me on to SD were huge fans of Royal Scam. There is a very obvious influence.

this comment has been haunting me, and explains why The Royal Scam has never sat well with me

― Euler, Thursday, April 3, 2014 10:29 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sorry to do this to you Euler, but Umphrey's McGee covered 'Hey Nineteen' when I was in high school. it looks like they also cover 'Peg' now. ;_;

I knew I was home when ILM devoted 6000 posts to Gaucho's genius.

Phil Freeman mentioned it in his introduction the latest Marooned.

I'm sure the 33-1/3 has something to do with, De La Soul also, etc. (The "etc." I don't know about.) I meant the original RS reviews--Bud Scoppa, another name I didn't recognize--which I just checked. I remember the Marsh entry now...as with his Neil Young entry, he seemed like a weird choice to write about them; they just don't strike me as his kind of band.

one person did only vote for two albums and one was a solo album.

xpost

― Bee OK, Thursday, April 3, 2014 1:11 PM (1 hour ago)

That was me. Voted for Nightfly first, Royal Scam second. The rest of the initial run I hold roughly equal.

i think in the '70s a lot of people who had seen them as a weird/dark/jazzy/beatnik rock group, both for better and for worse, were put off by the slick studio sheen of aja, perhaps not quite noticing that they had been slick studio guys all along, and also perhaps put off by their sudden ascension to pop stardom. critics can we weird about that. and then gaucho kept going even further in that direction, plus, cocaine. rockcrits hate cocaine.

Aja having longer/fewer songs kind of puts me off it tbh. It is still great, but in my mind it's their least great.

it's a less realized Gaucho, although I like it.

rockcrits hate cocaine

and yet think about how many fucked up classics were the direct product of cocaine abuse in the 70s!

it's a less realized Gaucho, although I like it.

otm

no more interruptions.

we shall continue.

are you drinking

he was snorting coke, duh.

i had something to do and no i'm not drinking.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Sx2Buh4Ggk0/Uz3EjNlsLNI/AAAAAAAAAGk/BE5UaQiNEPc/w640-h320-no/Almost+Gothic.jpg

59. Almost Gothic
From: Two Against Nature
Released: February 29, 2000
76 Points, 4 Votes

might be my favorite image.

here's my ballot for the albums poll -- from the looks of the results I was the only one who went all out and ranked all the solo albums and the live disc:

The Royal Scam
Countdown To Ecstasy
Aja
Pretzel Logic
Katy Lied
Can't Buy A Thrill
Circus Money
Gaucho
Two Against Nature
Sunken Condos
Everything Must Go
Alive In America
The Nightfly
Morph The Cat
Kamakiriad
11 Tracks of Whack

"almost gothic" is great, awesome image

Wow, surprised that "Almost Gothic" made it. It's a fine track but not a standout on that album for me. Then again, there's only about 60 tracks on the first seven albums.