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steely dan: gaucho
Aug. 16th, 2023 01:01 pmi'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.
( you gotta shake it )
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.
( you gotta shake it )
