640 Steely Dan - Countdown To Ecstasy (1973)

Studio Album - Art Rock

About the Act:

Steely Dan are a rock band from Annandale-on-Hudson, New York State. They were formed in 1971, and Donald Fagan and Walter Becker were the two stable members. They broke up in 1981 but reformed in 1993, with just the two of them listed as members. Becker died in 2017 but Fagan continues under the Steely Dan name.

About the Album:

This was their second studio album. They didn't get any hit singles off it but it sold pretty well.

My History with this Album:

None

Review:

Sometimes I feel sorry for Americans. I mean there are lots of reasons to have sympathy for any country, and in many ways less for America than for others, but in terms of music, I have this arrogant conception that we have the better music a lot of the time. When it comes to Art Rock, for example, my mind immediately turns to 10CC and Supertramp and Manfred Mann's Earth Band, and David Bowie and Roxy Music and so much quality, intelligent British rock. Barclay James Harvest.

And while I'd love to think that there is a grain of truth to the idea that Britain does creativity well, it's also true that of course I am more aware of British acts than you would expect an American to be, and vice versa. For example, I have of course heard of Steely Dan before, and even reviewed one of their albums, but they have not been on my radar that much. We had 10CC, but they had Steely Dan.

That's one preamble that I had thought of for this review. The other was all about neighbourhoods and familiarity, and doing this metaphor thing about how some styles of music are like familiar cities, where I might know where the station is, and a few main streets, like Heavy Rock for example - and some are like cities in a foreign country that I don't know at all, and don't understand the language, like hip-hop, and that this sort of thing is my home town. Definitely in my comfort zone here.

This is medium-weight to lighter rock, with elements of all sorts of other things in there (funk, blues, jazz for example) but mostly varied rock, with a key intelligence to it. The rhythms and time signatures are mostly straightforward, but with some odder combinations and switches. The chords and harmonies are definitely tending towards the more unusual - extended chords, strange sequences, and this is possibly where the strongest Jazz influence is. These are elements that lean towards Prog Rock, but this is still standard-length songs and sometimes quite poppy. 

The lyrics point towards a dystopian America inhabited by arty degenerates, and there is a decent amount of satire here - but not heavily signposted like Frank Zappa would. More subtle. Actually the lyrics are often quite cryptic, for example "do you throw out your gold teeth? Do you see how they roll?"  I actually enjoyed reading some of the things that critics have said about the lyrics, they have often felt the need to be even more pretentious than the lyrics themselves. I'll go as far as saying they are generally clever and cryptic, but quite enjoyable.

The singer has a distinctive voice, in a way that I can't describe. Sorry. I thought about this, and thought that if I knew lots about singing and voices I might have a vocabulary that helps me describe voices better, but then realised that this would only be helpful for readers with the same vocabulary. I might as well say his voice in enphelotic, which is a word that I just made up to mean "a voice that sounds like this guy".

So, bottom line, fun songs, interesting music, I enjoyed it a lot.

8/10

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/3VwMlhrc3Z0YON3UNV0VSC

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLz6cAheObZcjuKv9ZVh9dF8z_HY1NNJDS

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countdown_to_Ecstasy