Another thing for me is that I’m sort of a jazz fundamentalist. I love lots of classic jazz, but once it gets to a certain period (fusion, I’m looking at you), jazz ceased to interest me. Steely Dan has always seemed to be in the fusion tradition to me, and it turned me off.
I dunno. I’m a musician (Well, a singer. You be the judge. :D) and to me comparing Steely Dan to the Beatles feels like comparing Bach and Stravinsky to Mozart and Beethoven. They’re both brilliant at what they do, but they have different purposes and strengths. Steely Dan’s the Bach/Stravinsky in this equation; more intellectual, more complex, at times more ambitious, not as easily accessible. The Beatles are Mozart/Beethoven, with melody, emotion, passion aplenty – but there’s a lot of intellectual meat there, too.
I admit that my music tastes are strongly impacted by my emotional connection to the works, both melodically/harmonically and lyrically. Given that, it’s only natural that I lean more to the Beatles’ side. Dan amuses me, makes me think and reflect and reminisce, but it doesn’t make me feel. Nothing Steely Dan did ever moved me or speaks to me the way She’s Leaving Home or Fool on the Hill, or makes me go all weak in the knees like I Want You (She’s So Heavy).
Fortunately, I don’t plan on being cast adrift on a desert island any time soon with the choice of only one or the other, so I’m happy to include both in my collection!
It’s a fascinating question - for me, the biggest difference between the two bands is that Steely Dan is essentially a song-writing duo and the rest of the band is extremely malleable, whereas the Beatles worked very hard to remain a quartet plus producer, with outside musicians (Billy Preston, Eric Clapton) added occasionally. Remember the stories about how hard George had to fight to get EC into Abbey Road to record the solo for ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps.’? I’ve never heard anything remotely similar about Steely Dan.
In fact, Steely Dan makes me think of the Ellington conception - It isn’t the instrument that matters, it’s the man playing it. Usually, this is taken to refer to the Duke including some oddball instruments in the section, but in the case of Steely Dan, it makes me think “Sure, Larry Carlton is yet another guitarist, but there’s something about his playing that I hear in the solo for Kid Charlemagne, even though he hasn’t even seen the chart for it yet”.
There’s also the parallel of starting out as a recording/touring act and making the conscious decision to abandon concert performance in favour of studio recording (I’d start working XTC into this discussion, too, but I’m on a ski vacation…)
A huge distinction between the Beatles and Steely Dan would be in the use of vocal harmonies. Esp. early on, the Beatles would sing the same words in the same rhythm, but with harmonies added. Steely Dan much preferred the model of back-up singers repeating lyrics slightly after the lead singer - part and parcel of their obsession with arrangement, and also coming from their respective roots as a quartet of singer/instrumentalists and a band based around a pair of songwriters. Gotta go - there might still be some snow on the ground tomorrow if I’m lucky. And if I’m not on the slopes, I’ll bore you some more later.
Labrador Deceiver said:
*It still blows me away that the band only existed for 7 or 8 years after they hit it big. Their entire catalog of music happened over a period of time that is less than half of that of The Dave Matthews Band. One fourth of U2.
Sorry for the hijack, everyone. *
That blows me away, too. And, in the same token, most of Steely Dan’s best work was in the same time period, As well as Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, as well as others.
Something really remarkable happened in the mid '60s to late '70s as far as popular music is concerned.
I’m am old guy, but my kids listen to these songs as if they’re something new. And I really don’t understand why.
It would be as if I was hearing Frank Sinatra or Bing Crosby or Frankie Vallie as the next big thing.
Like you say, we’re talking talking tendencies, rather than an absolute divisions. And just for kicks here’s a list of the tender side of Steely Dan:
Dirty Work
Midnite Cruiser
King of the World
Doctor Wu
Black Cow
Deacon Blues
Maybe… Hey Nineteen, Razor Boy, Caves of Altimira
and to snatch a couple from solo Fagan, *The Dunes and Maxine.
*
Here’s an interesting clip on the recording of Peg, with comments by some of the musicans who played on the track along with comments from Fagen and Becker at the mixing board. It’s an excellent illustration of how well F&B envisioned that their songs should sound and the extraordinary lengths they’d go to in order to acheive that sound. Maybe old hat for some of you guys, but I thought that some of the civilians in thread might enjoy it as I did.
Thanks to choie and Le Ministre for your comments too. (And Le Ministre, I hope there’s snow on the ground and that you are on the slopes after all, but I’d be happy to be bored further should that turn out not to be the case. ;))
Oh it’s all very subjective, of course. I think part of the … mmmm what word do I want? remoteness I guess … that I sense in SD’s work is related to the following:
- Donald Fagan’s voice. It’s interesting rather than expressive, and the melodies he’s singing don’t require him to have much of a range (though in fairness I absolutely think he has the vocal range – the music just doesn’t demand it). Basically he has one unvarying sound, and to me, that sound happens to be the audio equivalent of a cynical, twisted smile. It’s like … if Dennis Miller could sing, I’d imagine him sounding like Fagan. (Yowch. Okay, that’s possibly the cruellest jibe I’ve ever given. Sorry, Mr. Fagan.) In short, I’ve never heard a Dan vocal that made me think “wow, this guy’s really in pain, or really happy, or really angry.” And that empathy is integral in making me feel something. Does the singer emote? If not, I’m just not feelin’ him.
Some of the McCartney or Lennon vocals, meanwhile, are absolutely cris de coeur. I believe that as brilliant musicians as SD are, L&M are far more talented at using their voices as instruments.
It’s not even just the beauty of the voice, though. I’m not a purist here. I mean, look at Sting, who by most technical measures is not a great singer – he’s got next to no vibrato, for one, which is usually mandatory to me in enjoying someone’s voice, and he often sounds unsupported, breathy, and weak. And yet by God, the man can put over a lyric and mean it, and he can twist his sound into different shapes like a fine saxophonist. When he’s screaming “My God, you must be sleeping,” I totally buy that there’s no God currently in the vicinity!
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The smooth uniformity of the harmony vocals. Though they’re kickass to sing along with, I must add. But they’re predictable, at least to me as a singer, and they’re lulling rather than energizing or emotionally inspiring. For all their technical genius, I find them much easier to harmonize with than the Beatles, who often go down some unusual and surprising routes.
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Here’s where I reveal my shallowness, but: the almost absurd opacity of the lyrics. I mean I’m sorry, but what the hell does “They call Alabama the Crimson Tide Call me Deacon Blues” mean? That is, I know what it means, but it’s just so darn woolly. Which is how I feel a lot of their lyrics are: dense for the sake of being dense. Just tell me what you’re feeling, for God’s sake, don’t lay down a cryptogram and expect me to decode it!
I always feel that the key to really getting and feeling the Dan is being high. Which I’ve never been, so I feel like I’m missing out.
But despite the above I don’t want to give the impression that I dislike their songs. I absolutely don’t, in fact, I actually love 'em. They’re captivating, complex, smart, funny, beautiful at times, and as I said earlier, awesome to sing along to if you like harmonizing. They’re also great for lowering blood pressure when you’re stressed! Just for me personally I feel like they’re too cynical and distancing to inspire emotions.
(BTW, one thing I don’t think I’ve seen mentioned is the Michael McDonald Factor. Now he has a great, soulful singing voice, and his backup work is terrific. Of course he’s also one of the worst enunciating singers in the universe, which certainly doesn’t help when the lyrics are also hard to decipher.)
choie, if you haven’t seen the Youtube video about Peg that I linked to just above, you might want to take a look at it. McDonald is one of the musicians interviewed (it’s a short one though) and he talks a bit about the harmonizing work he did on the song, and then F&B isolate his vocals on the mixing board. The sound is much more complex and interesting when isolated. You might enjoy listening to it.
Ooh yes, thank you for that, Starving Artist. That’s a fabulous deconstruction of the song, and quite fascinating to hear each individual track. Especially the different guitar solos – the final one is sooooo familiar that it was hard to hear the other options as anything but interlopers on a classic. I love how the bassist sneaked in the hand slaps.
(Silly observation: for some reason McDonald’s “PEGGG!!” always makes me think of Kermit the Frog. Also, that picture of Fagan at about 4:00? Is exactly how I picture him singing. Twisted mouth and all! :D)
And next up on that user’s playlist is “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” which is truly one of my favorites but my CD is scratched so I haven’t heard in in years. Sounds great, doesn’t it? So does “Josie.”
Thanks. I’m glad you liked it. I worry sometimes that when I post stuff like that that I may be trying to tell people more than they really want to know. 
As far as Donald’s expressions go, I know what you’re talking about with the wry sardonic wit but I’ve always just felt that he had a hard time getting his mouth out of the way of the notes he was trying to reach. (I don’t know if you remember the CNN anchor Lynne Russell but she always reminded me of him in his younger days and her mouth struck me the same way.) You are right though about the lack of tenderness in his singing. I can’t think of a single song where he sounded like what I would call tender, though to me he quite often projects moments of longing, lonliness, sadness and isolation.
And yes, I love “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number”. “Do It Again” is another favorite. (And come to think of it, maybe one of the reasons that SD doesn’t hit you as more emotive is that their woeful lyrics are frequently couched in such upbeat-sounding music.) And “Josie” is an absolute favorite, as are “Home At Last” and “I Got The News”. “Deacon Blues” is the song where I finally “got” Steely Dan. This was in the late eighties and even though I’d known of Steely Dan for fifteen years and Aja was one of my favorite albums, I mostly knew them just from their radio hits and hadn’t really given them much thought. I was also woefully ignorant at that time of what constitued truly good art. Anyway, about 3:00 a.m. one night I was driving down a deserted street in the industrial area of Dallas just west of Love Field. All was quiet and dramatic and “Deacon Blues” came on. For some reason their musicianship really started to sink in and suddenly I found myself thinking,“Damn! These guys are good!” I’ve been a huge fan ever since.
Another benefit of this thread is that I’m finding lots of Steely Dan Youtube goodness. There are a couple more “Making of” segments that are fun to watch. I’ll list them below along with “Peg” again for those who may have missed it above:
Home At Last (Bernard Purdie is fun toward the end)
Also for anyone interested, the “Making of Aja” documentary DVD is still available from Amazon. I think I’m gonna have to order a copy. 
I’ve just spent a couple of hours on YouTube remembering how much I love Steely Dan. Love the Beatles too. Had never thought of comparing them, though.
The Beethoven/Mozart vs Bach/Stravinsky analogy is apt, choie. Thanks for pointing it out.
Thanks for starting this thread, Starving Artist.