Walter Becker 1950-2017
 

https://www.google.com/search?q=walt...w=1360&bih=648

RIP Walter. :(

What an underrated band. Honestly. I mean, I know they're huge in their way, but as musicians they were really something, and as songwriters they took some very weird risks that later generations have not fully learned to appreciate. Beneath the sheen and gloss was a lot of weird ass shit, and that's all I can really say.

Another good one.

I must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Severian again.

My father introduced me to their music when I was very young. I was with him at Tower records when he bought the Citizen box set in '93. He did it because he was like a Deadhead for Steely Dan -- a Danhead? -- not because he didn't already have everything they'd released. So that was a year for SD, and also Fagen's Kamakiriad.
I was Nirvana-boy at the time, and for years the music sounded positively shite to me, but the older I got the more I realized what an exception to all the rules of pop music these guys were. Almost like Nirvana in a strange, roundabout way. I mean, I can't think of any major chord Steely Dan songs... even Nirvana had a few of those. Their music didn't really make you feel good. It just resonated.
I started to respect them, then I started to enjoy them. I got into jazz, and I got into weirder stuff, and nursed my fascination with square pegs in the pop world. I thought there was something about the way Fagen and Becker wrote about life that resembled that of Lou Reed.
When I started falling for Lou and the VU, actually, my dad took notice and played Becker's "Junkie Girl" for me, and that was probably the moment of clarity. 11 Songs is an underrated album, even among Steely Dan fans.
It's rare that a band manages to be so simultaneously listenable and challenging, and still strike such a chord with people.

Ya gotta be kidding me.

Great band and a real shame. In this day and age 67 isn't old at all. Steely Dan are a band I'm still working my way through their albums, so I've a lot more great stuff to come still.

One thing that I always wondered about the two of them is how did they write their songs. Was it that one would have an idea for a song then they'd both elaborate on it, or did they write everything pretty much eyeball-to-eyeball?

The news that Fagen is still gonna carry on playing under the Steely Dan guise was pretty surprising to me too.

Aaaahhaaa hahahahaha!!!!

You made it exist more by quoting it. Now it's all on you bitch.

Told y'all I only do this shit on my phone. :fuckyou:

From December 2016's Magnet Feedback with Martha Wainwright:

I neve got into the Dan, until I met Mrs. Instigator, who is from El Paso and in El Paso Steely Dan are like GODS. Each song is an "El Paso classic". Because of her I fell hard for the song Deacon's Blues. I found it so sad and so beautiful, so I bought AJA, and fucking fuck, I could not deny the MUSIC inside. I am not too fond of their earlier work, but when they said fuck it and became a studio band? great timeless songs. Not rock, not jazz, not anything specific, just intelligent music with intellgent lyrics written for ADULTS

I bought Aja through the RCA Record Club around 1979 or so - it was a record you could play for adults and they had to take you more seriously.

The way "Dirty Work" kicks in in American Hustle is pretty darn perfect.

But until a certain point in the 90's(?) the band was kind of a nonentity in public- they came up precable and video