The amazing blog Dangerous Minds had a nice little piece by Richard Metzger about reconsidering the musical proficiency of Steely Dan. Everyone knows that I'm the Ultimate Dan Fan through and through, but a lot of Richard's thoughts ring true for me too. For instance, Steely Dan has a tendency to grow along with your musical maturity. I didn't listen to much SD in high school unless I was hanging out with my older uncles. It was something that I revisited years later when I began seriously collecting vinyl. I've also always hated the criticism that when bands took great care and pride in production, that it meant they weren't legit or something. There's room for both the wall of sound masterpiece and the bare-knuckle bar band. From the article:
Maybe it does take a good hi-fi to really appreciate Steely Dan. I’ve been listening to them now quite a bit since then and they’re like the diamond cutters of rock. They really don’t sound like anybody else. Their legendary attention to sonic detail and search for perfection in the studio puts them in a league entirely of their own creation. Their sound is so sleek and so clear, almost crystalline. There is a lot of space around the instrumentation (a hallmark of their sound greatly enhanced by a multi-channel mix) and you can turn their albums up as loud as fuck with very, very little distortion. (Yes, I’m a lousy neighbor…).
I also love this comment by Tristan.
As an aside, i think this shows how utterly pernicious an affect punk rock had on musical critics and taste-makers for a long time. The idea that music was somehow suspicious if it wasn’t basically barre-chord based pub rock was very prevalent in the eighties and nineties, and I’m happy to see that that attitude is a thing of the past nowadays.
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