Steely Dan - The Royal Scam poll

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.

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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

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