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

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.

i'm working on gospel time these days

i'm so excited I can barely cope
i'm sizzling like an isotope

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-WMmjeoOgQD0/Uz3LS77Ea4I/AAAAAAAAAHc/pWl2IJncpiQ/w640-h320-no/Parker%2527s+Band.jpg

58. Parker's Band
From: Pretzel Logic
Released: February 20, 1974
79 Points, 4 Votes

can somebody do a Spotify?

it's like you read my mind
http://open.spotify.com/user/1219464571/playlist/3WxVfruSRGjCsxQsrtZNuG

although it just occurred to me that I'm going to be super busy all day tomorrow, so I made it collaborative, people are welcome to add songs if I'm not keeping up w/ it.

Soooo...Parker's Band! Like that one!

wow that's low. though i love "parker's band" a wee bit less than i used to (the arrangement is a bit fussy, and i could do without the sibiliant S's in that first line), i still love it as both a joyful tribute to music itself and as a statement of purpose for these particular musicians: "if you can't fly, you'll have to move in with the rhythm section" would have been a good note to leave on the steely dan studio door, though by the end, of course, if you couldn't fly they wouldn't even let you into the rhythm section.

perfectly sequenced after "East St Louis" (bop after hot jazz): Pretzel Logic is the Dan at their most earnest, jazz-nerd-wise, in its way.

always loved the "parker's band" early version/demo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfY0q7FA4H8

(who's that guy singing with fagen in that demo? is that becker?)

The "We will spend a dizzy weekend" section really catapults this song.

It may sound odd, but Parker's Band reminds me a bit of "Down on the Corner." Similar subject matter, but obviously Creedence left out the bizarre bridge.

"Parker's Band" was my #20, and

The "We will spend a dizzy weekend" section really catapults this song.

this is why

I like how "Parker's Band" is about the incantatory power of Steely Dan's own music.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-frrNr49ncrQ/Uz3OMAiU0qI/AAAAAAAAAH4/6G7T04Fzv40/w640-h320-no/The+Second+Arrangement.jpg

57. The Second Arrangement
Unreleased
90 Points, 5 Votes

hahaha

"The Second Arrangement" had been a favorite of producer Gary Katz and Nichols. In late December 1979, after weeks of working on a particular recording of the track, approximately 3/4 of the song was accidentally erased by an assistant engineer who had been asked by Katz to ready the track for listening. The band attempted to re-record the track, but eventually abandoned the song entirely.

Steely Dan biographer Brian Sweet has written that the group abandoned the song in favor of focusing on "Third World Man." "The Second Arrangement" was never played live by Steely Dan until a rarities show on September 17, 2011; a studio recording of the song remains unreleased. However, a handful of demo and outtake recordings of the song exist in bootleg form.

In addition to "The Second Arrangement", a number of songs were written for the album, but ultimately left off Gaucho. A number of these songs were included on a bootleg titled The Lost Gaucho, which represents recordings from early in the album's sessions. Song titles include "Kind Spirit", "Kulee Baba", "The Bear", "Talkin' About My Home," as well as "The Second Arrangement". An early version of "Third World Man" with alternate lyrics is included under the title "Were You Blind That Day." This recording dates from the Aja sessions.

so happy "The Second Arrangement" made it (with my help!)

here's the studio bootleg:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgugMZI18pc

and here's a live version from a 2011 'rarities night' show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=filvJyO89EI

i remember the engineer story (never heard this song though). man "accidentally erasing 3/4th of an obsessively-worked-on Steely Dan track" is up there with your all-time bad days at work