63. Steely Dan, "Aja"

 


I was never really a Stereo Guy.  I'm not even sure if Stereo Guys exist any more, but they used to hang around hi-fi shops and compare tuners and speakers and use words like "harmonics" and "Blaupunkt" and "Harmon-Kardon."  They had their turntable arms balanced by professionals and their stereo was in a room that was especially tuned for it.  Anyway, if you went over to a Stereo Guy's house (and I can imagine Stereo Girls existing, although I've never seen any evidence of it), he would put on an album to show you how great his stereo was and that album would be Aja by Steely Dan.

The reason is because the production on this album is so crystallinely clear that it sounds like the musicians are actually in your head.  It's so crisp and sharp you could cut diamonds with it.  I guess it's jazz-rock or jazz-pop but it has been rightfully celebrated as one of the foundational albums of Yacht Rock, a genre that did not exist when the album was made.  

I like it okay.  If, like me, you were anywhere near FM radio in the 80s you already know a bunch of these songs, like "Peg" and "Josie" and "Deacon Blues."  My favorite is "Peg," which I didn't know was "Peg" until adulthood - I always half-listened to it on the radio and thought they were saying "Babe," as in "Babe, it will come back to you."  I did recognize he was singing "blueprint blue" in the lines "Done up in blueprint blue/It sure looks good on you" and always liked that phrase and wondered why something was done up in blueprint blue.  

"Deacon Blues" also has some great lyrics.  Vocalist Donald Fagen explained that the song is about a suburban guy who fantasizes about becoming a musician:

Learn to work the saxophone
I, I'll play just what I feel
Drink Scotch whisky all night long
And die behind the wheel
They got a name for the winners in the world
I, I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama the Crimson Tide
Call me Deacon Blues

Those are pretty great lyrics, honestly.

But, you know, I like Steely Dan fine but don't love it.  For one thing, the production is clean but too clean.  There's not a note or a beat out of place and I like my music a little shaggier.  I don't love jazz and this is strongly jazz-influenced.  And finally, Fagen's voice is uhhhh, not normal.  I mean, even the most die-hard Dan fan would have to admit his pinched, nasally delivery does not exactly scream "cool."  A more uncharitable view would be that he sounds like a dick.

And Steely Dan was just not for me.  It was for Stereo Guys and guys who cut neat lines of cocaine on spotless mirrors and drank scotch whiskey or Cuervo Gold when I was chugging Schaefer and smoking godawful weed out of a smashed Coke can.  The kind of guy who might have an embroidered robe and a valise.  Not me.

Is this album in my personal Top 100? Nope.

Comments

  1. StephenOctober 27, 2022 at 5:30 PM

    There's a LOT on the internet about the Peg guitar solo. There's a lot on the internet about a lot of Steely Dan guitar solos. These beautiful, complex moments that are NOT wanking, but melodic, in-service-of-the-song moments. Like any sensible punk teen, I hated Steely Dan. But I came around.

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