Drummer Cafe Community Forum

What are your thoughts on this bands' music? Try not to critique from a drummer's perspective. Just from a listener enjoying or disliking what they created musically.

Imho, Steely Dan (Walter Becker and Donald Fagen) are one of the best song-crafting duos from the USA. Period. I think they rival Lennon/McCartney in terms of song-craft, yet with their own, obviously more jazz-influenced style. I fell in love with their music about seven years ago and everytime I hear it again I'm amazed at how great it is. Just my opinion. I want to hear what other community members think about Steely Dan's music.

I loved their music many years ago. Some of the best musicians around.  ;)

My all-time favorite group. Can't do a road trip without "Deacon Blues" going in the CD player.

Steely Dan's fantastic. I doubt you'll get many negative responses about them. To me, their a band that I can throw any of their cd's into the player and easily listen to the whole thing. Great stuff.

They're incomparable. Their control of their craft and their truly huge musical vocabulary is unique.

The tunes are @$%# good, too.

I am completely agreeing with my cafe cohorts - a very slick band, one of my faves! Consummately crafted songs - if only bands like these could get a break today. Maybe DMB is the closest? I don't know.

I saw the Dan live last year in AUS, they can bring it and then some. I'll never forget seeing Peg and Black Friday played live. Katy Lied and Gaucho are the albums I like best if I had to pick two.

BTW - The support act was World Party with our esteemed friend Mr Whitten in command.

Whitten and Carlock at the one gig - surely a once in a lifetime event!

Good thread :)

Always loved the music, never saw them live.
Would love to catch them live.

I seen Steely Dan play several years ago. They were as good sounding live as they are right in front of my own speakers.  ;)

i like a lot of their music. never bought their albums when i was growing up, but i knew a lot of the tunes all the same. so much of that stuff is really timeless. great mood music. i really have a thing for that tune 'peg'.

great band with a great players--especially the drummers!

Not my favorite genre or my favorite group but the creativity, skill and talent is undeniable.  They seem to have perfected their craft. 

Ditto. 

My favorite Steely Dan work is Aja.  I think I have it on every media format...CD, MP3, cassette,  LP... 

always loved them from the get-go.

back in the day, i guess i really didn't know why. maybe it was because their recordings sounded cleaner than anything else on vinyl in its time.
 
fave album? not a popular choice, but gaucho. though, of course, this band is really about tunes, not albums, necessarily, with the possible exception of aja.

one caveat: women, at least most of the ones i know, do not care for steely dan. why? i don't know. too cold? too clinical? but i think it's always been a white guy thing kind of band. just like a miata is a girl car. 8)

lol.

i so didn't want to go there, but this really made me laugh, because a friend of mine always used to say steely dan was music for white suburban valium-addicted moms on long island. i don't know the truth or falsity of that, but i could see where the stereotype could come up. much as i like a lot of the dan's music, there is something a little 'smoothy' about it. or "whunky." ha!

now just to set the record straight:  i like '69 camaros.

 ;)

These days I can't listen very long to music for just "great drumming" or for that matter just "great players". The songs have to be good to keep my attention.

Granted there is a bit of work when trying to be rounded and of value as a pro in listening to or learning music, regardless of whether you like it or not.

Steely Dan is one of those bands that happily combine songs I like with excellent playing and often engineering landmarks. 'Aja's' already been mentioned but also Fagen's solo 'The Nightfly' album represent many things of what is good in popular music. They also include state of the art playing and somewhat timeless engineering and production.

Personally I've been listening alot to one song off of the Fagen 'Morph the Cat' album called 'Brite Nightgown'. Just cool and funky with very humorous lyrical direction (inspired by DF reading W.C. Fields biography!).

Count me in as a fan of Becker and Fagen songs. They just happen to also have some fantastic pop drumming as well.

Jim

Well speaking of solo albums, I'll cover the other side. I just received Walter Becker's "11 Tracks of Whack" for my birthday, having lost my original copy back in the '90's, and it is like hanging out with an old friend. I think its fabulous. I love the language and tongue in cheek humour, you can definitly tell where the smart assedness come from. And of course the playing rocks. The percussion on "Hat too flat" is worth getting the album alone. Here is a great review of the album:
http://www.steelydan.com/whackreviews.html (http://www.steelydan.com/whackreviews.html)

 I know the dan have covered at least 2 of the tunes off of this album, "Book of liars" and "Hard up case"
In fact here is a video of the latter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51ySDx3RVfY (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51ySDx3RVfY)

Pay special attention before the song starts, an audience member says something like, "Don't sing Walter, PLEASE!"

Now I know alot of people who say they don't like his singing. I love it, I think its very soulful, and very fitting for his music.

Beckers voice...
I always thought it was good on the albums.
Live was a very different story - let me tell you.  :-\

Yeah I think there is a YouTube video of Becker singing Haitian Divorce, its not perfect, but that is a character, too

You had to ask, I could go on and on about them.  They are probably, hands down my favorite of all time.  Complex, complex, complex music, look at some of their chartings, unbelieveable.  Plus any band who has Larry Carlton playin with them on tour and in the studio can't be all that bad.  I have recently purchased a box set cd of theirs, 4 cd's and I want to say 60 some songs on it, every Steely song imagineable.  I also have a DVD, the making of the Aja album, I recommend watching this, you will be amazed at how much they went through to get this compilation done in the studio, amazing.

The making of AJA is great. One of the 'Classic Albums' series.