Are any other Steely Dan albums as good as Aja?

I bought Aja when Amazon had the mp3 download on sale a couple years ago.

Are any of their other albums worth a listen? I enjoy this laid back, jazzy style of music on Aja.

Absolutely. As a longtime fan, I’d have to say Aja is still my favourite but the others are great too. Gaucho is pretty good, as is The Royal Scam. Can’t Buy a Thrill has a lot of great stuff on it you probably heard years ago but didn’t know was them.

Haven’t kept up with newer stuff…I find with most bands I like, I prefer the older albums. They’re good live too.

Apart from Aja, I’m only familiar with “Can’t Buy a Thrill” and “The Royal Scam,” but I love them both. Aja might be a bit more jazzy, but the style is definitely there on the other two albums.

I really like Can’t Buy A Thrill, but it is more conventional and pop songy than Aja.

“Katy Lied” is a great album. I think their best.

All their albums from the 70s and 80s are awesome, in my opinion. I don’t really even think of them as separate albums, just as one looooong smoooooth groove.

ETA: Donald Fagen’s solo album, “The Nightfly” is awesome as well.

Everything from Katy Lied through Gaucho is gold.

In my opinion, their strongest effort is “The Best of Steely Dan”. Man, those guys were on their game for that one! :wink:

I own every one of their albums and agree 100% with Tim R.Mortiss’ post. It’s an amazing body of work.

The earlier albums are not as good as Aja. They are better.

I’ll step in and say there isn’t anything really like Aja, but agree with above re Katy Lied. Pretzel Logic is kind of in the same bag as well.

Propers to Donald Fagen for Morph The Cat – that’s a heavy jazz-soul sound, beautifully mixed, with great tunes. I know someone else will come and say his other solo albums, and, yes, we all know they’re great, but MTC doesn’t get as much talk as the earlier albums, and it’s much more in the Aja bag, IMHO.

Course, without Steve Gadd on trap drums and that whole crew, it’s not going to be Aja, but they got lucky those dates, what can you do?

Aja is the best and most accessible. Katy Lied is second best, but tougher to get into. Gaucho, Can’t Buy A Thrill are wonderful. Royal Scam and Pretzel Logic are good too. Nightfly is a Fagan solo album and is wonderful.

No love for Countdown to Ecstasy? I’m listening to “My Old School” as I type.

I don’t share the love for Can’t Buy A Thrill because I’ve thought it was too conventional since it came out, but agree that from Countdown to Gaucho you have a long, smooth groove.

Can’t Buy A Thrill suffers from containing Reelin’ In the Years, which is absolute crap. That alone ruins any good that comes from the rest of the album.

Fagen’s new solo album Sunken Condos isn’t half bad, either

4 disk box set:

Steely Dan - Citizen

You cannot go wrong. All great stuff.