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Steely Dan..

#141
Yacht Rock is the smooth jazz of rock. Smooth jazz isn't inherently bad either (Bob James' early albums, for example) but there's been a lot of music made in its name that's difficult to pay attention to.
 
#142
mapleglo said:
Yacht Rock not withstanding, Steely Dan was a great band. I listen to the song Aja, and I am blown away by its complexity, while still remaining harmonious and polished. I don't know of any other popular song from that era that sounded even close to it.

I'll add that I am also a big fan of Christopher Cross, who would have been even more popular had he been skinny. You may remember that MTV was hitting its stride in those days, and he was just not pretty enough to fit into the video format. What a shame.

I proudly proclaim that I am a big fan of Yacht Rock, and I think we do it an injustice by brushing it off. Yacht Rock got a bad reputation somehow, but there were some great songs, great musicians, and great bands that fell into that category.
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I've gone to a couple of Yacht Rock concerts, and if the band is very good, the music is VERY good!!

That said, I've never been a big fan of Steely Dan. I find some of the tunes (like Dirty Work) to sound whiny, and Aja to me is a song without a hook and never gets going. Their stuff is OK to listen to if I don't have to hear a whole album. Their stuff just does not appeal to my ear.
 
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#143
jamro217 said:
Katy Lied was the first to feature Michael McDonald on background vocals. He made such an impact he had a pic on the back cover. There was some sort of technical issue with the mix and the band was not happy with the result. I could never figure out what it was because the LP sounded fine to me. The musicianship was stellar as usual. This came out just before the disco craze started to take over.
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The Dan attributed it to problems with a DBX noise reduction system.
 
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#147
Steely Dan, what more can ya say. Just an incredible conglomerate of musicians headed by two of the best in the business. Only started to see them "recently" say within the last 10 years. Never got to see them with Larry Carlton, but as a bonus, I got to see him solo a few months back, what a freaking spectacular show that was!! SD is always a killer show. RIP Walter.

Fav songs... Night by Night, King of the World, Fire in the Hole, Green Earrings....
 
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#148
mapleglo said:
You may remember that MTV was hitting its stride in those days, and he was just not pretty enough to fit into the video format. What a shame.

I proudly proclaim that I am a big fan of Yacht Rock, and I think we do it an injustice by brushing it off. Yacht Rock got a bad reputation somehow, but there were some great songs, great musicians, and great bands that fell into that category.
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I agree fully, some of the music played on the "Yacht Rock" channels is top notch. Unfortunately the term brings to mind the "Elite Yachtie Class". Having worked on and around boats over the years, the scene below is not all that far off. They need a better name...

​
 
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#149
Like the original off of "Countdown to Ecstacy" better.
Super liked Steelie's first three albums, then they started getting a little too jazzy for my tastes.
I mean, I LOVE JAZZ, but these guys put out such interesting fun rock stuff.
But understand as artists they wanted to grow and had the knowledge and chops and ideas to go towards jazz.

But by Aja, they lost me. Just too slick.
But hey; it was a HUGE album, prolly their best selling, that launched them into super star status.
And NO DISRESPECT to the musicians on that album! SUPERB!! I just thought the songs sucked. 2¢
 
#150
tothemax said:
I agree fully, some of the music played on the "Yacht Rock" channels is top notch. Unfortunately the term brings to mind the "Elite Yachtie Class". Having worked on and around boats over the years, the scene below is not all that far off. They need a better name...
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I agree. What's typically classed as "yacht rock" nowadays falls into what I guess we used to call the "soft rock" or "easy listening" categories and much of it is very well produced, well written music played by highly competent studio musicians. A lot of it is keyboard-centric. It's not "band rock," even though some of these records were marketed that way. Toto comes to mind. I don't take it as pejorative even though I understand that people who use the term might mean it dismissively. Nonetheless, I don't think SD fits there.

What separates out SD from that for me is the more heavy jazz borrowings, particularly in the chord voicings, and the reliance on known jazz players to pull that off. They also didn't shy away from bringing heavyweight R&B players like Purdie and Rainey on board and giving them license to lay down some serious grooves. So I guess for me it all leans away from pop and more into R&B territory while continuing to somehow remain radio-friendly to a degree.
 
#151
One of the most original bands and one of my all-time favorites!!! Top-flight composing, arranging, musicianship, recording, and mixing! When you have Anthony Jackson, Chuck Rainey, and Freddie Washington playing bass, with Steve Gadd and Bernard Purdie on drums, the music is going to be on point!!!
 
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#154
Alkali Ike said:
Yep. The entire album was "ruined" as far as Fagen and Becker were concerned. I can easily hear the defective audio processing.

But what a great album.
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It's easy to hear if you concentrate on the hi-hat and cymbals. I get it. This could have been fixed had the label not been so eager to rush it into production. I suspect part of their revulsion toward this record has as much to do with that as anything else.
 
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#155
LBS-bass said:
It's easy to hear if you concentrate on the hi-hat and cymbals. I get it. This could have been fixed had the label not been so eager to rush it into production. I suspect part of their revulsion toward this record has as much to do with that as anything else.
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The story offered by Denny Dias in that link I posted is they did try to fix it. They even took the studio master to dbx and even they couldn't figure it out.

Who knows for sure.
 
#156
Alkali Ike said:
The story offered by Denny Dias in that link I posted is they did try to fix it. They even took the studio master to dbx and even they couldn't figure it out.

Who knows for sure.
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That's not the story I heard, but as you said, who knows? The story I heard was that but the label wanted the record out so it was released before that could be resolved. Maybe some attempts were made but the label moved forward before things were fully hashed out. That notwithstanding, it's still a great record IMO and has some amazing music on it.
 
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