I should probably be playing some 50NL HU right now, but I don't really feel like it and I'm kind of out of it after consuming a great deal of alcohol last night. Snow storms FTW. You don't care, though. Anyway, I'm back again to talk about some good music, one of the things that makes this world ****ing great. I know 3,500 posts probably isn't something that is celebrated a lot, but whatever, I haven't done anything for a post milestone to this point, so this is going to be where I start. I really have no idea what I'm going to do, but I'll try to throw in some pictures and YouTubes and use paragraphs to ease your eyes and make this thread not too TL; DR.
Just as a recap, my introduction to The Lounge came with
this thread which was able to garner some pretty good discussion about the degree of awesome which is The Beatles. Because of this, I thought I'd start another thread that will hopefully be able to do the same with Steely Dan. If you've never heard Steely Dan, I would strongly recommend starting right about now, and no, Steely Dan is not one person.
I really like the first paragraph of their Wikipedia page, which reads:
Quote:
Steely Dan is an American rock band centered on core members Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. The band reached a peak of popularity in the late 1970s, with the release of seven albums blending elements of jazz, rock, funk, R&B, and pop. Rolling Stone magazine has called them "the perfect musical antiheroes for the Seventies."
Donald Fagen
Walter Becker
Together, a long time ago
I like that paragraph for the most part, because I think
this song, my personal Steely Dan favorite, does it 100% justice. Kid Charlemagne was recognized as #80 on
Rolling Stone's
100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time, and the entry for the song was pretty spot-on. It read:
Quote:
In the late seventies, Steely Dan made records by pushing a revolving crew of monster session dudes through take after take, which yielded endless jaw-dropping guitar solos. Larry Carlton's multi-sectioned, cosmic-jazz lead in this cut may be the best of all: It's so complex it's a song in its own right.
To go along with the guitar solo, the use of the piano is awesome and blends into the song's sound perfectly. Hell, all this and we haven't even began to talk about the lyrics yet? Listen to this song and tell me that it doesn't set the scene perfectly as far the drug scene of the '70s. I wasn't there, but for anybody that was, it must have been one hell of a time.
Wikipedia explains the context of the song pretty well, chronicling the rise and fall as well as the mentality of a prominent drug dealer. To spare quoting all the lyrics for awesomeness, I'll just post some of the Wikipedia page, they seem to do it justice.
Quote:
Although the lyrics are, at first glance, typically oblique and allusive, writers Walter Becker and Donald Fagen have stated that it was loosely inspired by the exploits of the infamous 1960s San Francisco-based LSD chemist Owsley Stanley — although it conflates the core story with numerous other images of the Sixties. This is evident in the following lines:
On the hill the stuff was laced with kerosene
But yours was kitchen clean
Everyone stopped to stare at your Technicolor motor home
The first two lines draw on the fact that Owsley's acid was famed for its purity, although the last line may be a reference to the famous psychedelic bus named Further, which was used by the Merry Pranksters, who were supplied their LSD by Owsley himself.
The lyric "You'd go to LA on a dare and you'd go it alone" alludes to a story in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test about a trip taken by chief Prankster Ken Kesey.
The final verse foreshadows Owsley's eventual bust:
Clean this mess up else we'll all end up in jail
Those test tubes and the scale
Just get it all out of here
Is there gas in the car?
Yes, there's gas in the car
I think the people down the hall know who you are
Owsley and another person were arrested after their car ran out of gas.
I seemed to spend a lot of time on that song, and of course Steely Dan isn't awesome for just one composition. Some of my other favorites include:
My Old School
Hey Nineteen - especially this one because of Becker's little "Cuervo Gold" story.
FM
Reelin' In the Years - It was probably performances like this that made them stick to the studio for so long, it kind of sounds like the backing vocalists are just screaming without much harmony during the chorus. Fagen sounds great, though. But, I had to include it because LOL Bill Cosby!
Reelin' In the Years circa 2009
Peg
Do It Again - I'm not a big Michael McDonald fan but I think he does a good job with this song.
Dirty Work
Deacon Blues
Josie
Black Cow
Aja
Obviously I can't get them all and I'm sure those that I forgot can be added in the thread somewhere along the line. I could probably keep going for awhile, but I think this is a pretty good ending point. To get the discussion going, I'll post a poll about their albums & which is your favorite, since for whatever reason I forgot to do that in The Beatles thread.
Here is their discography so you can see what songs are on each album or whatever. On that note, I'm going drink my big black cow & get out of here.