miscellanium (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
miscellanium) wrote2023-08-16 01:01 pm
miscellanium) wrote2023-08-16 01:01 pm
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steely dan: gaucho
i'm not a music reviewer by any means. in the past others have encouraged me to write about music i enjoy, since i do like reading reviews whether i agree with them or not - i remember spending hours on progarchives and places like this one guy's website where his rating system didn't use stars or numbers but something that iirc was derived from math or something? i can't find it again unfortunately* - and i'm also very interested in the history/production of a given album and following connections to find cool music by relatively obscure artists (bobb trimble, anyone?), but it's difficult for me to actually write my own reviews because, well... i know i'm not getting the same auditory information as most other people. but here's an unorganized attempt (pitchfork this certainly ain't) so let's see how it goes - aiming high by starting with steely dan even if it means retreading well-trodden ground lol.
apparently steely dan's discography has been experiencing a re-evaluation lately and i had no idea - only found out when i was browsing reviews of donald fagen's solo albums the other day and fell into a rabbit hole. (this brand-new book focusing on the characters in the band's songs sounds interesting and i'll have to see if i can get it from a library first or something - the illustrations are a cool idea, but the author's "don't do drugs, kids" comment at the end of the interview is annoying enough to make me not want to buy the book sight unseen lol.) i grew up mostly hearing about the band as a punchline the same way a lot of other '70s stuff was made into the butt of jokes during the 1990s/early 2000s and never actually listened to them until last year, entirely by chance. i asked my parents recently about their memories of the band and they both said that they remembered some songs being radio hits but didn't have strong opinions either way. they didn't have any of the albums in their record/cd collection when i was a kid even though they did have a fair amount of jazz music. at any rate i'm glad i finally introduced myself to steely dan - i've tended to prefer music with tightly-crafted lyrics that invite closer reading and/or are dense with references&meaning, and steely dan's work fits right in. distinctive voices also tend to feature a lot in my favorites and while i wouldn't put fagen on the same level as orbison/nilsson/mercury/darnielle/etc, he's still recognizable enough for me to hear 'I.G.Y.' on a recommended-for-you playlist and be like, huh, this sounds like steely dan and then look up the singer's name for an oh-shit moment lol.
my favorite of steely dan's albums at this point is the 1980 "gaucho" which, in addition to having a rather notoriously tortured production history, is apparently also their most divisive. some people feel it's too polished and/or too simple compared to earlier work... can't speak to the "polished" sound but if it is relatively simple then that's to its benefit imo - makes it easier to follow what individual instruments are doing so appreciation comes faster. wall-of-sound can be fun but it typically takes me several listens to figure out what i'm even hearing. (thinking about how long it took me to appreciate masato nagai's "wild drive"....)
thematically it feels like a spiritual companion to pulp's "this is hardcore" and that's probably why i'm drawn to it more than the other albums - i've been a big pulp fan for a long time and still go back and forth on whether i like "this is hardcore" or "we love life" best, but i've not found anything else that really reminds me of the latter. "gaucho" and "this is hardcore" have similar themes of dissolution and longing, with less defiance than in the earlier albums from either band. the songwriters for both tend to simultaneously make fun of and empathize with their seedy male subjects - but they're not necessarily asking the listener to sympathize. their lyrics are more aimed at reminding us that we're all capable of being terrible to each other in one way or another, and that beneath the fucked-up actions there's still a person there who's hurting. sometimes, anyway. other times it seems like they're just having fun writing about creeps, and i can dig that too! both titles are also almost concept albums, tightly wrapped around a unity of sound and theme that each band's earlier (or later!) albums don't quite have, which is another thing that makes the overall listening experience that much more rewarding imo.
steely dan continued to revisit these themes, of course - 'things i miss the most' from "everything must go" is a real fucking earworm with their signature sensitive-yet-sardonic lyrics - but "gaucho" as a whole is so laser-focused that it comes across like a collection of short stories by raymond carver with more of a sideways sense of humor. and i'm seeing now that there's some who class carver as "dirty realism" and that midnight cowboy is considered a great example of the subgenre, which tracks since i adore both the herlihy book and the schlesinger film.... i don't know if steely dan would fit the literary definition here but there's a definite throughline with regards to subject matter that i find interesting.
anyway, back to the music: this is a short album, easy to listen to all the way through in sequence as intended, though i can also understand why people might not enjoy that experience much. to continue the short story comparison, it's a bit like flannery o'connor - great in individual doses, but if you sit and read a full collection of her in one go then you might find it a bit repetitive after a while. (not my personal opinion! one i've seen other people express, though, including people whose opinions on writing i tend to respect even when we disagree.) so imo if you only listen to one from this album, make it 'hey nineteen'. i'll talk a bit about each track below, including why that one is my favorite.
1. babylon sisters - tends to make it onto greatest hits collections but honestly not my favorite, though it's certainly a strong starter. i do like the languid freeway feeling of it, really has that vibe of just cruising on the road with your windows rolled down and your hand lazily tapping to the slow beat on the outside of your car. i've seen people talk about how impressive the horns are in this one and it's a song that gets better with repeated listens for sure - i think it's just that i tend to prefer songs with stronger beats haha.
2. hey nineteen - this is the song that introduced me to steely dan so obviously i'm a little biased but still. those first few notes - i've seen ppl claim that 'deacon blues' off their previous album "aja" has the more recognizable opening and yeah that's another fave of mine but imo the start of this one wins out. it's like a bell ringing out to wake you up after the previous song, or after whatever you were listening to before that. the overall composition sways like something a ballroom dancer with modern tastes might choose, but that swaying sensation in combination with the great little character sketch in the lyrics also makes me think of a drunk guy trying to keep it together at a bar. by fantastic coincidence it feels like the anthem for the high-school teacher version of my oc maurice lol. it may be partly autobiographical, who knows and who cares? what matters is that the delivery of "she thinks i'm crazy / but i'm just growing old" sounds so yearning it makes me reflect on my own ageing. (becker and fagen would have been around my age when this was written/released; i think it's a little silly to fuss about that ~age gap~ especially since the lyrics are clearly self-aware.) the little pun with soul/sole survivors is cute and multi-referential - gotta check out that r&b group - and many people have pointed out the ambiguity of the refrain that closes out the song but i'm gonna point it out too because it's just so fun. is he with her? is he drowning out his existential crisis alone? either way it's a bop.
3. glamour profession - love the steady heartbeat-like backbone of this one and the jangling sound of the other instruments swirling around it. listening to this with good thumping bass at least once is a must. that's true of the whole album in general, but this one really shines when you let its heartbeat control yours. it's still good without the bass in your body, of course, especially if you're wearing good headphones but man. nothing beats the enclosed surround sound/bass of a car sometimes.
4. gaucho - diversity win! a gay relationship that's just as fucked up as the heterosexual ones on this album! tbh a lot of times i'd skip over this one if listening while driving because it's so lowkey and gentle-sounding that it can make me sleepy - which is not to say that i don't like it, just that it's one of those deceptive things where the meaning/intent of the lyrics have an interesting contrast with the music. it's slinky with a vocal delivery that undercuts the music at times in the same way the narrator's boyfriend's side piece du jour is harshing the vibes of their nice swanky apartment lol.
5. time out of mind - a good change of gear after the previous song. nice and funky and honestly not something i would have imagined for a song about chasing heroin highs. the previous song sounds more like i would have expected for this subject? then again that type of unexpected juxtaposition is something steely dan likes playing with often. really like how all the individual rhythms stack together and that guitar solo by the dire straits guy just slides over everything else like some good syrup.
6. my rival - another banger of a groove following neatly in the footsteps of the song before it. ive seen ppl say that Aja's signature was a defiant "I'll be what I want to be," Gaucho's was a resigned "I'm not what I used to be" - a bit ironic to me bc that first quote is from the song 'deacon blues' which is imo a pretty obvious satire of the guy singing. he'll be what he wants to be, sure, but he sucks! he's romanticizing this whole life he barely even has - he's still talking about learning how to play a saxophone! it's steely dan gently making fun of themselves and they've said as much in the past. meanwhile the characters in "gaucho" don't seem to be as delusional - they know they're chasing something that either they can't have or just won't be the same again. and this song, like all the others on this album, gets into that as well. he's lost his girlfriend to another man and is building up the confrontation he wants to have like it's a cowboy movie, but he acknowledges there's no getting her back and the song ends before we know if he even follows through.
7. third world man - languid again but in a different way than the opening song - more of a feeling of unease, of trying to go to sleep when you're not ready to. the lyrics for this one are harder for me to parse, personally; it's a lot more solipsistic than the rest of the album, closer to the lyrics of "pretzel logic" or similar. the crawling sound of the guitar is hard to forget though, so it's still an interesting song for me.
i like this description shared on the fever dreams steely dan fansite: "'Third World Man' is the perfect, pathetic, disgusting ending to the last chapter of the first book of Dan. It weasels and worms its way to the end, leaving ends untied and dreams unfulfilled. It blasts fireworks and boasts what could be the best piece of solo guitar in any Dan song. It's a funeral dirge when the trombones and trumpets should be blaring. The perfect place would be in between the A and B sides [...] but it's like calling an old girlfriend that still wants you. Even if she's the best you'll ever do, if you screwed it up once, it's just tainted."
that's a good note to wrap up on imo - this ended up being way longer than i anticipated so i gotta stop somewhere. if you made it this far then i appreciate you lol. got your own thoughts on this album and/or band? feel free to share, even if you disagree with me!
*after some exhaustive searching it might have actually been the pre-2008 version of this site? if so, i misremembered and there are indeed number ratings but the system is super convoluted and possibly what i was thinking about when i said it uses math lol. then again, there's a ton of opinions on here i don't agree with and it feels like i'm remembering reviews of artists/albums that aren't listed.... a mystery for the ages i suppose.
apparently steely dan's discography has been experiencing a re-evaluation lately and i had no idea - only found out when i was browsing reviews of donald fagen's solo albums the other day and fell into a rabbit hole. (this brand-new book focusing on the characters in the band's songs sounds interesting and i'll have to see if i can get it from a library first or something - the illustrations are a cool idea, but the author's "don't do drugs, kids" comment at the end of the interview is annoying enough to make me not want to buy the book sight unseen lol.) i grew up mostly hearing about the band as a punchline the same way a lot of other '70s stuff was made into the butt of jokes during the 1990s/early 2000s and never actually listened to them until last year, entirely by chance. i asked my parents recently about their memories of the band and they both said that they remembered some songs being radio hits but didn't have strong opinions either way. they didn't have any of the albums in their record/cd collection when i was a kid even though they did have a fair amount of jazz music. at any rate i'm glad i finally introduced myself to steely dan - i've tended to prefer music with tightly-crafted lyrics that invite closer reading and/or are dense with references&meaning, and steely dan's work fits right in. distinctive voices also tend to feature a lot in my favorites and while i wouldn't put fagen on the same level as orbison/nilsson/mercury/darnielle/etc, he's still recognizable enough for me to hear 'I.G.Y.' on a recommended-for-you playlist and be like, huh, this sounds like steely dan and then look up the singer's name for an oh-shit moment lol.
my favorite of steely dan's albums at this point is the 1980 "gaucho" which, in addition to having a rather notoriously tortured production history, is apparently also their most divisive. some people feel it's too polished and/or too simple compared to earlier work... can't speak to the "polished" sound but if it is relatively simple then that's to its benefit imo - makes it easier to follow what individual instruments are doing so appreciation comes faster. wall-of-sound can be fun but it typically takes me several listens to figure out what i'm even hearing. (thinking about how long it took me to appreciate masato nagai's "wild drive"....)
thematically it feels like a spiritual companion to pulp's "this is hardcore" and that's probably why i'm drawn to it more than the other albums - i've been a big pulp fan for a long time and still go back and forth on whether i like "this is hardcore" or "we love life" best, but i've not found anything else that really reminds me of the latter. "gaucho" and "this is hardcore" have similar themes of dissolution and longing, with less defiance than in the earlier albums from either band. the songwriters for both tend to simultaneously make fun of and empathize with their seedy male subjects - but they're not necessarily asking the listener to sympathize. their lyrics are more aimed at reminding us that we're all capable of being terrible to each other in one way or another, and that beneath the fucked-up actions there's still a person there who's hurting. sometimes, anyway. other times it seems like they're just having fun writing about creeps, and i can dig that too! both titles are also almost concept albums, tightly wrapped around a unity of sound and theme that each band's earlier (or later!) albums don't quite have, which is another thing that makes the overall listening experience that much more rewarding imo.
steely dan continued to revisit these themes, of course - 'things i miss the most' from "everything must go" is a real fucking earworm with their signature sensitive-yet-sardonic lyrics - but "gaucho" as a whole is so laser-focused that it comes across like a collection of short stories by raymond carver with more of a sideways sense of humor. and i'm seeing now that there's some who class carver as "dirty realism" and that midnight cowboy is considered a great example of the subgenre, which tracks since i adore both the herlihy book and the schlesinger film.... i don't know if steely dan would fit the literary definition here but there's a definite throughline with regards to subject matter that i find interesting.
anyway, back to the music: this is a short album, easy to listen to all the way through in sequence as intended, though i can also understand why people might not enjoy that experience much. to continue the short story comparison, it's a bit like flannery o'connor - great in individual doses, but if you sit and read a full collection of her in one go then you might find it a bit repetitive after a while. (not my personal opinion! one i've seen other people express, though, including people whose opinions on writing i tend to respect even when we disagree.) so imo if you only listen to one from this album, make it 'hey nineteen'. i'll talk a bit about each track below, including why that one is my favorite.
1. babylon sisters - tends to make it onto greatest hits collections but honestly not my favorite, though it's certainly a strong starter. i do like the languid freeway feeling of it, really has that vibe of just cruising on the road with your windows rolled down and your hand lazily tapping to the slow beat on the outside of your car. i've seen people talk about how impressive the horns are in this one and it's a song that gets better with repeated listens for sure - i think it's just that i tend to prefer songs with stronger beats haha.
2. hey nineteen - this is the song that introduced me to steely dan so obviously i'm a little biased but still. those first few notes - i've seen ppl claim that 'deacon blues' off their previous album "aja" has the more recognizable opening and yeah that's another fave of mine but imo the start of this one wins out. it's like a bell ringing out to wake you up after the previous song, or after whatever you were listening to before that. the overall composition sways like something a ballroom dancer with modern tastes might choose, but that swaying sensation in combination with the great little character sketch in the lyrics also makes me think of a drunk guy trying to keep it together at a bar. by fantastic coincidence it feels like the anthem for the high-school teacher version of my oc maurice lol. it may be partly autobiographical, who knows and who cares? what matters is that the delivery of "she thinks i'm crazy / but i'm just growing old" sounds so yearning it makes me reflect on my own ageing. (becker and fagen would have been around my age when this was written/released; i think it's a little silly to fuss about that ~age gap~ especially since the lyrics are clearly self-aware.) the little pun with soul/sole survivors is cute and multi-referential - gotta check out that r&b group - and many people have pointed out the ambiguity of the refrain that closes out the song but i'm gonna point it out too because it's just so fun. is he with her? is he drowning out his existential crisis alone? either way it's a bop.
3. glamour profession - love the steady heartbeat-like backbone of this one and the jangling sound of the other instruments swirling around it. listening to this with good thumping bass at least once is a must. that's true of the whole album in general, but this one really shines when you let its heartbeat control yours. it's still good without the bass in your body, of course, especially if you're wearing good headphones but man. nothing beats the enclosed surround sound/bass of a car sometimes.
4. gaucho - diversity win! a gay relationship that's just as fucked up as the heterosexual ones on this album! tbh a lot of times i'd skip over this one if listening while driving because it's so lowkey and gentle-sounding that it can make me sleepy - which is not to say that i don't like it, just that it's one of those deceptive things where the meaning/intent of the lyrics have an interesting contrast with the music. it's slinky with a vocal delivery that undercuts the music at times in the same way the narrator's boyfriend's side piece du jour is harshing the vibes of their nice swanky apartment lol.
5. time out of mind - a good change of gear after the previous song. nice and funky and honestly not something i would have imagined for a song about chasing heroin highs. the previous song sounds more like i would have expected for this subject? then again that type of unexpected juxtaposition is something steely dan likes playing with often. really like how all the individual rhythms stack together and that guitar solo by the dire straits guy just slides over everything else like some good syrup.
6. my rival - another banger of a groove following neatly in the footsteps of the song before it. ive seen ppl say that Aja's signature was a defiant "I'll be what I want to be," Gaucho's was a resigned "I'm not what I used to be" - a bit ironic to me bc that first quote is from the song 'deacon blues' which is imo a pretty obvious satire of the guy singing. he'll be what he wants to be, sure, but he sucks! he's romanticizing this whole life he barely even has - he's still talking about learning how to play a saxophone! it's steely dan gently making fun of themselves and they've said as much in the past. meanwhile the characters in "gaucho" don't seem to be as delusional - they know they're chasing something that either they can't have or just won't be the same again. and this song, like all the others on this album, gets into that as well. he's lost his girlfriend to another man and is building up the confrontation he wants to have like it's a cowboy movie, but he acknowledges there's no getting her back and the song ends before we know if he even follows through.
7. third world man - languid again but in a different way than the opening song - more of a feeling of unease, of trying to go to sleep when you're not ready to. the lyrics for this one are harder for me to parse, personally; it's a lot more solipsistic than the rest of the album, closer to the lyrics of "pretzel logic" or similar. the crawling sound of the guitar is hard to forget though, so it's still an interesting song for me.
i like this description shared on the fever dreams steely dan fansite: "'Third World Man' is the perfect, pathetic, disgusting ending to the last chapter of the first book of Dan. It weasels and worms its way to the end, leaving ends untied and dreams unfulfilled. It blasts fireworks and boasts what could be the best piece of solo guitar in any Dan song. It's a funeral dirge when the trombones and trumpets should be blaring. The perfect place would be in between the A and B sides [...] but it's like calling an old girlfriend that still wants you. Even if she's the best you'll ever do, if you screwed it up once, it's just tainted."
that's a good note to wrap up on imo - this ended up being way longer than i anticipated so i gotta stop somewhere. if you made it this far then i appreciate you lol. got your own thoughts on this album and/or band? feel free to share, even if you disagree with me!
*after some exhaustive searching it might have actually been the pre-2008 version of this site? if so, i misremembered and there are indeed number ratings but the system is super convoluted and possibly what i was thinking about when i said it uses math lol. then again, there's a ton of opinions on here i don't agree with and it feels like i'm remembering reviews of artists/albums that aren't listed.... a mystery for the ages i suppose.
no subject
I also read the wiki and "As an example, it took Becker, Fagen, recording engineer Roger Nichols, and producer Gary Katz more than 55 attempts to complete a satisfactory mix of the 50-second fade out of "Babylon Sisters"." I feel this. I feel this so much lmao.
Having said all of the above, I knew *of* Steely Dan but never heard of them? So this was the first time I've heard any album! I might check the album again with your track reviews because you really give them a nice nuance to each thing, and added context!
no subject
yeah, their perfectionism shows in a lot of their work! totally relatable for sure lol. raises some great questions about how much of that to tolerate, is it worth it, etc. all very subjective but still worth thinking about.
no subject