(Soft Rock, Jazz-Pop, Lounge, AOR, MOR) [8-Track Cartridge / Stereo 8] [24/48] Steely Dan - Greatest Hits - 1978, ALAC (image+.cue)

REM DATE 1978
REM GENRE "Soft Rock, Jazz-Pop, Lounge, AOR, MOR"
REM COMMENT "From Cassette"
TITLE "Greatest Hits"
PERFORMER "Steely Dan"
REM COUNTRY "USA"
REM CATALOG "ABC Records – 8020-AK 1107 T"
FILE "Steely Dan - Greatest Hits.m4a" WAVE
REM COOLNESS "Off The Charts; Ça dégage dur; Отлично; ¡Que Chévere!"
TRACK 01 AUDIO
TITLE "Do It Again"
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 02 AUDIO
TITLE "Reeling in the Years"
INDEX 01 05:50:00
TRACK 03 AUDIO
TITLE "My Old School"
INDEX 01 10:28:00
TRACK 04 AUDIO
TITLE "Black Friday"
INDEX 01 16:19:00
TRACK 05 AUDIO
TITLE "Bodhisattva"
INDEX 01 20:06:00
TRACK 06 AUDIO
TITLE "Show Biz Kids"
INDEX 01 25:33:00
TRACK 07 AUDIO
TITLE "Pretzel Logic"
INDEX 01 31:00:00
TRACK 08 AUDIO
TITLE "Kid Charlemagne"
INDEX 01 35:37:00
TRACK 09 AUDIO
TITLE "Any Major Dude"
INDEX 01 40:20:00
TRACK 10 AUDIO
TITLE "Here at the Western World"
INDEX 01 43:31:00
TRACK 11 AUDIO
TITLE "Bad Sneakers"
INDEX 01 47:30:00
TRACK 12 AUDIO
TITLE "Doctor Wu"
INDEX 01 50:49:00
TRACK 13 AUDIO
TITLE "Haitian Divorce"
INDEX 01 54:41:00
TRACK 14 AUDIO
TITLE "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo"
INDEX 01 60:31:00
TRACK 15 AUDIO
TITLE "Rikki Don't Lose that Number"
INDEX 01 63:46:00
TRACK 16 AUDIO
TITLE "The Fez"
INDEX 01 67:58:00
TRACK 17 AUDIO
TITLE "Peg"
INDEX 01 71:59:00
TRACK 18 AUDIO
TITLE "Josie"
INDEX 01 76:01:00

Steely Dan: Can't Buy a Thrill (ABC, 1972) How about that--a good album with two hit singles attached. And as you might expect of New York natives who reside in the City of the Angels, both brim with ambivalence: "Do It Again," a catchy modified mambo with homogenized vocals that divert one's attention from its tragic tale of a loser so compulsive he can't get himself hanged, and "Reelin' in the Years," a hate song to a professed genius. Think of the Dan as the first post-boogie band: the beat swings more than it blasts or blisters, the chord changes defy our primitive subconscious expectations, and the lyrics underline their own difficulty--as well as the difficulty of the reality to which they refer--with arbitrary personal allusions, most of which are ruses. A
Steely Dan: Countdown to Ecstasy (ABC, 1973) With the replacement of lead singer David Palmer (who fit in like a cheerleader at a crap game) by composer-pianist-conversationalist Donald Fagen (who looks like he just got dressed to go out for the paper), they achieve a deceptively agreeable studio slickness--perfect licks that crackle and buzz when you listen hard, Grass Roots harmonies applied to words that are usually twisted. Not only does "Bodhisattva" come on like a jazzed-up "Rock Around the Clock"--it shines like China and sparkles like Japan. But somehow I don't think Fagen really intends to hold hands with an Enlightened One, not even out of base curiosity. A
Steely Dan: Pretzel Logic (ABC, 1974) This album sums up their chewy perversity as aptly as its title--all I could ask is a lyric sheet. "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" blends into AM radio with an intro appropriated from Horace Silver, while the other side-opener builds a joyous melody of Bird riffs underneath a lyric that invites one and all to "take a piece of Mr. Parker's band." The solos are functional rather than personal or expressive, locked into the workings of the music. And even when Donald Fagen's voice dominates as it comes out of the speakers it tends to sink into the mix in the mind's ear--recollected in tranquility, the vocals seem like the golden mean of pop ensemble singing, stripped of histrionics and displays of technique, almost . . . sincere, modest. Yeah, sure. A+
Steely Dan: Katy Lied (ABC, 1975) Opening with an economic crash and closing with a smacked-out rumination about succor, betrayal, and Vietnam, the first side seems surprisingly sweet and lyrical--mostly by way of the Manhattan nostalgia of "Bad Sneakers" and the faithless passion of "Rose Darling," but also, and most tellingly, in the rumination. This is a matter of rhythm and timbre rather than verbal content--the music lets us know that their cynicism is no more a celebration of cynicism than their smack references are a celebration of smack, lets us know we can break the habit. By comparison the three skillful urban miniatures on side two seem thin and tight, never quite brought around by the more expansive emotions of "Your Gold Teeth II" (throw them out and see how they roll) and "Any World (That I'm Welcome To)" ("Is better than the one I come from"). A-
Steely Dan: The Royal Scam (ABC, 1976) The first question is whether the melodic retreat represents a refusal to indulge the audience or a withering of invention. The second is whether the conscious choice of a jagged, pinched music is a wise one. As if in compensation, the lyrics are less involuted and personal, but in fact their objectivity intensifies Steely Dan's natural nastiness. Whether this narrowing of spiritual possibilities is willed or a symptom of the same chronic insularity that makes Fagen and Becker unwilling to tour, the result sounds a trifle arty and a trifle producty at the same time. Does it matter whether they call San Juan "the city of St. John" in reference to the apocalypse or because it scans nice? B
Steely Dan: Aja (ABC, 1977) Carola suggests that by now they realize they'll never get out of El Lay, so they've elected to sing in their chains like the sea. After all, to a certain kind of reclusive aesthete, well-crafted West Coast studio jazz is as beautiful as anything else, right? Only I'm no recluse. I hated this record for quite a while before I realized that, unlike The Royal Scam, it was stretching me some; I still find the solo licks of Larry Carlton, Victor Feldman, et al. too fucking tasty, but at least in this context they mean something. I'm also grateful to find Fagen and Becker's collegiate cynicism in decline; not only is "Deacon Blues" one of their strongest songs ever, it's also one of their warmest. Now if only they'd rhymed "I cried when I wrote this song" with "Sue me if I play it wrong," instead of "Sue me if I play too long." Prefering long to wrong could turn into their fatal flaw. B+
Steely Dan: Greatest Hits (ABC, 1978) This picks what's worth picking off The Royal Scam, adds the negligible "Here in the Western World" to their output, and leaves "FM" on FM, which I consider parsimonious. Essential music in a superfluous configuration. B-