Steely Dan
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Time to stir the pot a little bit. Mention Steely Dan amongst music fans and you’ll generate emotion. It’s like putting the name “Britney Spears” into a blogger post. The traffic skyrockets and the comments, positive and slanderous, roll in.What is it about Steely Dan that is so polarizing? To some they're geniuses, to others the hatred runs deep. On another site I frequent a regular says "Everytime a Steely Dan song is played, God kills a kitten." Personally, Steely Dan is one of the few bands that to me never gets old. The arrangements are complex and perfect. The compositions and melodies are complex and perfect. The phrasing and chording is complex and perfect. The solos, while generally short, are perfect. The production is perfect. In fact, I’ve been told by several people that the perfection is one of the objectionable things about the band. Personally, I get off on the complexity and perfection. Jeff “Skunk” Baxter is an incredible guitar player who did some memorable work with both The ‘Dan and The Doobie Brothers. When asked about the difference between the 2 bands, Skunk said “I think Steely Dan went straight to the brain and the Doobie Bros went straight to the heart”. I think he nailed it, at least with respect to Steely Dan. Not that there’s an obscure Steely Dan song, but this tune from "Countdown to Ecstasy" is a favorite of mine and doesn’t get as much play. Dig the guitar solo. The cliched phrasing dropping into Skunk Baxter’s growling, dirty, guitar solo is, well, perfection. And to me that's Steely Dan.
Comments (8)
Must admit that I have been surrounded by music fanatics my entire life because I never been aware that there people who actually hated Steely Dan. Sure I run across folks who have never heard of Steely Dan...but have a disliking to the band that results in statements like “Everytime a Steely Dan song is played, God kills a kitten.”? Actually that's extremely funny and I'm sure that both Walter Becker and Donald Fagen would laugh too.
Growing up in Hawaii, their music was considered the finest produced and arranged that every music store selling stereos on Maui used Steely Dan to sell their high fidelity equipment. Becker built his recording studio here on Maui that resulted in some fine Steely Dan tunes. It was Maui's appreciation for Steely Dan that had their outside show under the Hawaiian night sky sold out. Ironically, it was also on Maui that we got numerous complaints from listeners to take that offensive song off the air! "Cousin Dupree"? Were they serious? Offensive? It's nice to know that the Maui produced Steely Dan that featured "Cousin Dupree" ended up taking home a well deserved Grammy.
One of my bosses still shares his guilt off not knowing who Steely Dan was at Top 40 station that I worked at where we actually had songs that were hits that sampled Steely Dan like All Saints "I Know Where It's At". Even after all of the press after the Grammy win and the local angle. Even after the fact that many of us had played Steely Dan on his station. His story goes like this:
< He answers the request line and the caller asks if he could play anything by Steely Dan. "Who's Steely Dan?" my boss asks without hesitation. The caller is shocked and his voice changed and the volume was raised, "You don't know who Steely Dan is?!? What kind of DJ are you?!?". He tells this story three or four times a year. Classic. The power of Steely Dan.