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

"Babylon" and every Aja track but "I Got The News" def placing

"babylon sisters" features what is maybe my favorite drum track of all time

same

I think most people round here consider Babylon the weakest song on the record?

"Gaucho, apparently their last LP, demonstrates why they broke up: It's the kind of music that passes for jazz in Holiday Inn lounges, with the kind of lyrics that pass for poetry in freshman English classes." - Dave Marsh

has Marsh ever taken an English class

For years I just assumed Marsh was right about Gaucho, given the beigeness of its singles.

But then when I heard the rest of the record I realized how utterly wrong he was; this music would only pass for jazz in Ramada lounges.

I think most people round here consider Babylon the weakest song on the record?

no shortage of weird opinions surfacing in this poll.

― how's life, Saturday, April 5, 2014 12:41 PM

i also dig voulezvoulezvoulezvous, but I gather some ppl aren't fond

― yuoowemeone, Friday, April 4, 2014 7:04 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't like it in Lady Marmalade. Love it here.

― how's life, Friday, April 4, 2014 7:13 AM

I know! This guy doesn't like the chorus to Lady Marmalade, can you believe?

touche

Babylon Sisters has got to be pretty high on this list. Such a stone cold classic, it seems to have plenty of boosters on here. It was in contention for my #1.

& Marsh presumably loves Springsteen lyrics, which, me too sometimes, but there is nothing more earnestly scholastic than Springsteen's poetry;
shit, intro to lit editors are always trying to squeeze the Boss into their texts in the name of Relevance and Youth...

Springsteen, whom I like, has at least six lines I can quote that are embarrassing whereas Becker-Fagen's are at worst abstruse.

i love both, but comparing steely dan and springsteen is like comparing bourbon and lettuce.

Drive west on Sunset
to the sea
Strap your hands cross my engines

....it's like oil and water, really

lol

are we ready for some more songs?

xp Steely Dan and Springsteen both write song-as-movie narratives, though in completely different styles

I'm ready, if there's gas in the car

yes, there's gas in the caaaaaaaaaAAAaaar

Bee OK's got the news

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-8hOvC_8iFyI/Uz9z8CPTSFI/AAAAAAAAAe0/9b-iGmc0048/w640-h320-no/Barrytown.jpg

26. Barrytown
From: Pretzel Logic
Released: February 20, 1974
556 Points, 27 Votes, 1 Number One

OK, this is so weird. I am def in some Bizzarro world of SD fandom

Nice. I posted that all of my remaining seven would place, then realized that "Barrytown" was the one I wasn't sure of.

(I wasn't the #1, though.)

you don't dig the more straight-ahead rock Dan, Iago?
(didn't vote this myself but like it a lot)

you don't dig the more straight-ahead rock Dan, Iago?
(didn't vote this myself but like it a lot)

― Swag Heathen (theStalePrince),

It's looking that way isn't it? I like the big hits that are straight rock, deep cuts less so. Anyway, I'm going to pipe down

here's one in which I hear Dylan's vocal influence

I think Christgau might have had "Barrytown" in mind when he wrote this: "And even when Donald Fagen's voice dominates as it comes out of the speakers it tends to sink into the mix in the mind's ear--recollected in tranquility, the vocals seem like the golden mean of pop ensemble singing, stripped of histrionics and displays of technique, almost...sincere, modest."

(Followed by a qualifying "Yeah, sure," but still.)

Forgot that this was one of my possible outliers. It was one of the last songs to make my cut.

this is the one from PL I voted for. Pretty straightforward but still dense, e g my last listen was the first time I really noted the pedal steel.

This one didn't click for me until I knew he was singing it to a Krishna. Perfect from then on.

I thought it was a cult specific to Barrytown?

Barrytown: A town in upstate New York, close to Annandale-on-Hudson and Bard College (Becker & Fagen's alma mater). Its biggest claim to fame would be as the headquarters of The Unification Church, a.k.a. "The Moonies", a religious cult who gained notoriety in the 70s from reports of its mass weddings & alleged brainwashing of members. As a fundraising measure, followers would often stand at street corners, carrying small bouquets of flowers for sale (hence the lyric).

The lyrics are oblique, but when you get that context, everything snaps into focus.

in the beginning we recall that the word was hurled

a song i regret not voting for incidentally

it just barely made the cut for me, I'm glad I left it on

This one didn't click for me until I knew he was singing it to a Krishna. Perfect from then on.

krishna, moonie, whoever he is believed to be siging to -- i had absolutely no idea, and that completely, like 100 percent, reverses how i have always heard the song. i think.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-k5BxMqQfhLM/U0BNRfU7W6I/AAAAAAAAAfg/n8rrnxmmchM/w640-h320-no/Black+Friday.jpg

25. Black Friday
From: Katy Lied
Released: March 1975
575 Points, 28 Votes

Nice.

Could we get a quick summary post of the first 25?

Top ten!

25)575 Black Friday 28
26)556 Barrytown 1-27
27)543 Only A Fool Would Say That 22
28)540 Time Out Of Mind 24
29)522 Night By Night 24
30)513 Razor Boy 22
31)492 Rose Darling 24
32)478 Your Gold Teeth II (2-23)
33)475 Haitian Divorce 23
34)468 Your Gold Teeth 1-23
35)433 Bodhisattva 1-20
36)427 Glamour Profession 21
37)418 Don’t Take Me Alive 1-20
38)408 Home At Last 1-19
39)402 Midnight Cruiser 18
40)374 Any World (That I'm Welcome To) 1-15

41)308 Pearl Of The Quarter 14
42)304 The Royal Scam 16
43)302 Everyone’s Gone To The Movies 17
44)268 Charlie Freak 1-12
45)264 The Fez 13
46)259 Green Earrings 1-13
47)244 Here At the Western World 13
48)227 Daddy Don’t Live In That New York City No More 13
49)189 Sign In Stranger 10
50)179 Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me) 9

so already 9 tracks with #1 votes...will end up with, what? 25 different tracks? how many voters again?

Thanks!

77 ballots.

I gave up trying to order my 20 tracks and just sent an unranked ballot, don't know if lots of people did this and that's why there are fewer number ones than expected?

only 2 unranked ballots received.

Black Friday is their most classic rock FM radio sounding ime

only track from KL i voted for

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-3K7y6mRF6GQ/U0BUpz6SI3I/AAAAAAAAAgM/2w0mie-hNhk/w640-h320-no/Caves+Of+Altamira.jpg

24. The Caves Of Altamira
From: The Royal Scam
Released: May, 1976
627 Points, 25 Votes

pplains killing it with the graphics