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

i have to say that love steely dan, but for all their vaunted love of jazz, their music strikes me as antithetical to a major component of postwar jazz, in that every lick feels locked in place. it's very dense and accomplished pop music, but the jazz influence is present largely in instrumental color IMO.

maybe fagen would agree tho

Good points. It's crazy how Fagen kind of sounds almost identical to the sanctimonious "insult to the intellect of the people"-type criticisms Miles received from 1969-73 from critics and biographers like Ian Carr and Jack Chambers – people with this rigidly romanticized, oh-so-precious view of what jazz was supposed to be.

I think this may be why I've never liked "Deacon Blues" at all.

It's not too surprising to me that Fagen is not the type of jazz fan who would appreciate fusion-period Miles. There were plenty of jazz fans who didn't, mostly of a more trad bent. In that quote Fagen kind of echoes Stanley Crouch, who called Bitches Brew "static beats and clutter".

Cool jazz / hard bop era is the last jazz period Becker & Fagen like. Super cranky interview with them in Musician in 1980 where they go on about how Ornette Coleman is retrograde.
And R&B peaks with Ray Charles, according to Fagen in Eminent Hipsters ..... where Fagen also admits his tastes did not develop in pretty much anything beyond his youthful obsessions.

Steely Dan a prime example of great artist with narrow - positively reactionary - tastes.

what's jarring is how their avowed tastes are largely not reflected in their music

I mean apart from East St. Louis Toodle-oo and more subliminal stuff like chord voicings and having tight horn arrangements, their music bears zero resemblance to hard bop or ray charles or whatever

I think of their version of East St. L T. as a "nice gesture" - Duke was dying that year. Musically it's a travesty, a Disneyfication. Both the 20s and 30s versions by Duke are weird, spooky records that still sound alive. I've said this before, but the enshrinement of Duke Ellington as Cultural Institution means a lot of people miss a lot of wild sonic kicks thinking they are visiting a monument or something.

I think what worked for Steely Dan was that they did rock and pop with extra confidence, out of a sense they were in on something harder that they were not worthy of, but could compensate with pop music that was comparatively complicated.

This attitude has also produced some of the most awful crap from nearly anybody else who has it ---- all those classically trained idiots who think pop music is easy until they embarrass themselves. (name your own examples).

pplains is going to be my co-poll runner for Talking Heads. Bumping this tread to look again at what he did for us before. I also think he did Sonic Youth?

Aw, too much of a bourgeois ILXor for SY.

Along with this one, I've done Gotta Make Polls for the Polls I Make - ILM HUSKER DU POLL RESULTS and Deez POLLABLE Heroes - THE ILM //METALLICA\ POLL RESULTS

This one, by far - and so far, has been my favorite. Gotta say, there is something to running these polls by EITHER crunching the numbers OR doing the art. Looking forward to another side gig!

it was Husker Du that i was looking for, thought it was SY. i should have also remembered Metallica as that was more recent.

i agree, Steely Dan might actually be ILM's best poll.

again, thanks.

Those Metallica Bible pictures really went a lot flatter on me than I would've predicted.

never heard this (written by fagen)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJMelsJukC0

Snazzy suit.

walkin the dog and watching soul train

The new Fagen/Rundgren collar is great

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GknsBhsYiL0

omg lol

ha wow!

it's surreal hearing their voices together

So I take it this is about Trump.

and not too elegant

Great that this thread got bumped. I listen to this Spotify playlist about once every quarter or four times a year.

"Here Comes those San Ana Winds again"

happening to be listening to this Spotify right now. living in Southern California. oh yeah, add a bit of red wine.

probably the reason for my activity tonight.

lucky you :-)

I have been listening to ILM's Top 60 Spotify playlist these last couple of days for obvious reasons.

RIP Walter Becker.

A poster named some dude made this playlist:

http://open.spotify.com/user/1219464571/playlist/3WxVfruSRGjCsxQsrtZNuG

It's the results of this thread, just to be clear.

I've had 'Peg' stuck in my head all day.

i remember some dude!

i have been listening to a lot of Steely Dan this week including this playlist. so sad.

i have been watching the HBO series The Leftovers and last night it had a funny scene. they are having a party and one of the main actors teenage daughter is walking around. Steely Dan's "Only a Fool Would Say That" is playing at this huge party and she asked her dad who would play this music? he replies "old people" it is implied that he picked the music. i wanted to see where that song placed on our countdown and i see it was number 27.

been watching the hell out of some making Aja on YouTube

pretty much beats any roc doc/ artist biopic/ making of I can think of

I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall during the legendary six hour long "well the" session, just to see what the fuck was going on.

To be fair to Walter and Donald, the "well the" moment really is fantastic

The new Fagen/Rundgren collar is great

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GknsBhsYiL0🕸

Apparently they did this during the Morph the Cat sessions:

https://youtu.be/-m66623AoL8

this poll predated my Dan fandom but it was a great read. bravo to everyone but especially to Bee OK and to pplains. the images here may be your finest hour. lotta things surprised me in the countdown, my ballot would look a lot different than this list i think! "gaucho" would be my #1 is the only thing i'm sure of.

thank you, this is one of the best artist poll done on ILM if i don't say so myself and was a lot of fun. i remember ILx had outage during the roll-out and i was freaking out. it just caused this poll to run into Sunday, which in the end did not matter.

results have fallen off:

Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/user/1219464571/playlist/3WxVfruSRGjCsxQsrtZNuG

images by pplains, link courtesy of gr8080:
*******ALL GRAPHICS ON ONE PAGE*******

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8 Ballots
Full Results for 33 Solo Tracks
Total Points, Song, (Number One(s)), Total Votes

262 I.G.Y. 4-7
157 The Nightfly 1-5
156 New Frontier 5
94 Maxine 1-3
82 The Goodbye Look 3
73 Morph the Cat 1-2
64 I'm Not the Same Without You 2
58 H Gang 2
50 Slinky Thing 2
45 Circus Money 2
40 Paging Audrey 1-1
36 This Moody Bastard 1

33 Downtown Canon 1
33 Tomorrow' s Girls 1
33 Brite Nitegown 1
30 Junkie Girl 1
30 Ruby Baby 1
30 Somebody’s Saturday Night 1
30 Magic Smile (Rosie Zaza) 1
30 Walk Between Raindrops 1
28 Countermoon 1
27 Mary Shut the Garden Door 1
26 Miss Marlene 1
26 Security Joan 1
26 Hard Up Case 1
25 Weather In My Head 1
24 Century’s End 1
24 Down In The Bottom 1
23 Book Of Liars 1
23 The New Breed 1
23 Lazy Nina (Greg Philliganes) 1
22 Snowbound 1
25 What I Do 1

--------------

40 Ballots
Full Results for 16 Albums
Total Points, Song, (Number One(s)), Total Votes

1312 Aja 9-39
1198 Pretzel Logic 5-39
1191 Katie Lied 3-38
1180 Countdown to Ecstasy 7-35
1135 Gaucho 8-36
1096 The Royal Scam 5-38
1063 Can’t Buy a Trill 1-37
517 The Nightfly 2-18
223 Two Against Nature 9
166 Everything Must Go 7

89 Sunken Condos 4
45 11 Tracks of Whack 2
25 Circus Money 1
20 Alive In America 1
18 Morph The Cat 1
17 Kamakiriad 1

-----------------

77 Ballots Received (2 unranked)
Full Results for 84 Tracks
Total Points, Song, (Number One(s)), Total Votes

1600 Deacon Blues 6-59
1515 My Old School 10-54
1314 Peg 3-57
1252 Doctor Wu 7-44
1203 Kid Charlemagne 5-50
1158 Rikki Don't Lose That Number 4-46
1129 Babylon Sisters 4-44
1117 Black Cow 3-45
1036 Any Major Dude Will Tell You 3-41

885 Hey Nineteen 43
808 Do It Again 1-35
806 Dirty Work 1-36
767 Bad Sneakers 1-39
761 Show Biz Kids 2-32
732 Aja 3-30
722 FM (No Static At All) 34
699 King Of The World 2-28
686 Pretzel Logic 3-33
678 Josie 1-32
669 Gaucho 2-27

646 The Boston Rag 2-27
644 Reelin’ In The Years 32
628 Third World Man 1-26
627 The Caves Of Altamira 25
575 Black Friday 28
556 Barrytown 1-27
543 Only A Fool Would Say That 22
540 Time Out Of Mind 24
522 Night By Night 24
513 Razor Boy 22
492 Rose Darling 24
478 Your Gold Teeth II (2-23)
475 Haitian Divorce 23
468 Your Gold Teeth 1-23
433 Bodhisattva 1-20
427 Glamour Profession 21
418 Don’t Take Me Alive 1-20
408 Home At Last 1-19
402 Midnight Cruiser 18
374 Any World (That I'm Welcome To) 1-15

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

176 Jack Of Speed 1-8
171 Kings 9
156 My Rival 7
143 Through With Buzz 7
132 Throw Back The Little Ones 7
101 Everything You Did 5
90 Second Arrangement 5
79 Parker's Band 4
76 Almost Gothic 4
72 Monkey In Your Soul 3
60 I Got the News 3
59 West Of Hollywood 3
59 Fire in the Hole 3
56 Turn That Heartbeat Over Again 4
49 Change Of The Guard 3
47 Godwhacker 3
45 Everything Must Go 2
42 Gaslighting Abbie 2
39 Cousin Dupree 2
37 Things I Miss The Most 2
36 Janie Runaway 2
30 Mr. Sam 1
43 With A Gun 3
42 You Got The Bear 2
24 Were You Blind That Day 1
22 The Mock Turtle Song 1
20 East St. Louis Toodle-Oo 1
20 Two Against Nature 1
15 This All Too Mobile Home 1
15 Kulee Baba 1
14 Chain Lightning 1
14 Dallas 1
13 Pixeleen 1
12 Blues Beach 1

I can’t find the poll we did with the awesome graphics, but it looks like at least one of those images is being used elsewhere:

https://youtu.be/sqHpBpI1yQM

wow, that's crazy. pplains graphics will forever be immortalized on YouTube.

i think you got the right threat calstars. unless you are looking for something that isn't Steely Dan and those amazing graphics that pplains put together.

^thread

haha.

Including Nos. 51-60 in this poll one of the best ideas you had.

oh yeah, thanks. what pplains is talking about. it was poll number 50 so i was going to roll out a Top 50. at the last minute i asked pplains if he could make up 10 more images and he scrambled but was able to come up with them. the reason i added the extra 10 was because there was a number 1 in there. also "The Second Arrangement" ended up being 57 and now on YouTube, lol.

The changing of the guard!

your top two is correct but after that i can't help you

scrolls down...

and down...

did he forget?

and down...

6. Aja

yeah I can't help you

your copy editor would like to point out that it's "Only a Fool Would Say That"

nice to see someone agree w me about how great the debut is tho

i also think almost any ranking of the steely dan discography is correct tbf