Steely Dan--Aja

[Mascodagama]

Whilst I share the sentiment that Gaucho isn't among the greatest albums in the SD canon I still think it's a remarkable work. The surface has been polished to such a level of smoothness and lustre that it's easy to let the whole thing slide blandly past the ear without making much impression. But the brilliant musical detail is still there, lurking in the layers of the mix, if you listen for it. And Third World Man is just a wonderful tune, the one which caught me at first listen.

There's also an argument for Gaucho being their most subversive record, in that it combines the most glossily innocuous surfaces with the most cynical, bone-dry lyrical takes to be found anywhere. The vacuity and underlying toxicity of LA life wasn't a new topic for them, but Gaucho is pretty much a concept album on this theme. It's yacht rock that exists in order to excoriate the kind of people that yacht rock is made by and for. And the fact that I have many times heard Hey Nineteen playing as background music in shops is ample demonstration that people just don't listen to lyrics - a charming ditty that constitutes the monologue of a wealthy middle-aged creep in the process of getting a teenage naïf blasted on tequila and cocaine so he can screw her.

[Halmyre]

Whilst I share the sentiment that Gaucho isn't among the greatest albums in the SD canon I still think it's a remarkable work. The surface has been polished to such a level of smoothness and lustre that it's easy to let the whole thing slide blandly past the ear without making much impression. But the brilliant musical detail is still there, lurking in the layers of the mix, if you listen for it. And Third World Man is just a wonderful tune, the one which caught me at first listen.

There's also an argument for Gaucho being their most subversive record, in that it combines the most glossily innocuous surfaces with the most cynical, bone-dry lyrical takes to be found anywhere. The vacuity and underlying toxicity of LA life wasn't a new topic for them, but Gaucho is pretty much a concept album on this theme. It's yacht rock that exists in order to excoriate the kind of people that yacht rock is made by and for. And the fact that I have many times heard Hey Nineteen playing as background music in shops is ample demonstration that people just don't listen to lyrics - a charming ditty that constitutes the monologue of a wealthy middle-aged creep in the process of getting a teenage naïf blasted on tequila and cocaine so he can screw her.

I thought it was just a lament by a guy who realises he's grown too old for the girls he picks up. He's more sad than creepy.

[Vic2012]

It's at the bottom of my SD rankings. It's good, but compared to their earlier albums it's just ok. And yeah it is a bit slick sounding. Really love Home At Last though.

[Jerjo]

I bought Aja in college, a couple years into discovering them. Yeah, it was slick but man, there was such depth to it. I miss the days when everything was fresh and you'd hit album after album whose charms became more and more apparent with repeated listening. Gaucho was fine but I thought it was a lesser effort. I got a new copy recently and it held up better than I thought it would. Not equal to its predecessor. but stunning in places.

[bill g]

Great album! The first two tracks especially. The title track is certainly an adventurous piece of music, slightly Canterbury sounding to me. Incidentally I saw a Steely Dan tribute band called 'Nearly Dan' a couple months ago, who blew me away. Took SD tracks to a whole new level. 'Caves of Altamira' from the Royal Scam is another fabulous track.

[happytheman]

If you were in the market for stereo equipment at that time that was the "go to" album for any sales staff to play.. And I had the nerve to bring in Pink Floyd Animals for them to play instead...

[Baribrotzer]

Here's a local Steely Dan tribute band. Couldn't find a full version of Kid but there are other songs on Youtube.

The keyboardist/vocalist/bandleader, Glenn Workman, also plays in Crack the Sky.

[Baribrotzer]

"Hey Nineteen" - a charming ditty that constitutes the monologue of a wealthy middle-aged creep in the process of getting a teenage naïf blasted on tequila and cocaine so he can screw her.

I thought it was just a lament by a guy who realises he's grown too old for the girls he picks up. He's more sad than creepy.

You're both right. SD have always tended to write about despicable or pathetic men, and many of the protagonists of Gaucho are both: "Hey Nineteen"s aging slickster, whose smooth, hip lines ("skate a little lower now") are in fact way past their sell-by date. Or "Gaucho"s gay gangster, whose preferences were tolerated as long as he kept them under wraps, but now he's fallen hard for his latest pick-up, is letting him hang around, and that won't be tolerated.

[proggy_jazzer]

As for, I think, a lot of people, Aja was my first exposure to Steely Dan, and at the time, the exposure was massive. Even if you were aware of 'Rikki' and 'Do It Again' from the radio, this was a whole other level; for a while it seemed you couldn't pass a day without hearing something from Aja on the radio, at a party, or even from a high school/college jazz band. It was everywhere. Gaucho, though, dropped onto a considerably different musical landscape, in which the technical precision and attention to detail were becoming less valued by many, the focus of radio play was shifting, and it didn't have quite the same impact as its predecessor (The Long Run suffered in the same way vis-a-vis Hotel California, IMO). I find myself wondering, now, if I had heard Gaucho first, and with the same level of exposure, whether it would have been my favorite of the two. There certainly isn't any musical drop-off with Gaucho (again, IMO), and it offers some grooves that don't exist on Aja, along with more completely off-the-hook musical performances. One great album followed by another, I think.