Steely Dan is a jazz-rock band from 1970’s that was extremely popular due to unique lyrics and catchy sound in their music. The band was founded by Donald Fagen and Walter Becker in 1972. Their biggest attribute is their devotion to music and perfectionism in the recording. Band received many positive critics starting from early 1970’s until late 1980’s. Speaking of their perfectionism, it took them a year to record an album named Gaucho, hiring over 40 studio musicians.
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Katy Lied Success
This album is by far their most successful one as they’ve received various positive critics even from the most music-demanding Magazines like The Rolling Stones, Spin, and Bender. Concerning the audio quality of Katy Lied album, we expected nothing less than the quality we’ve heard before. The thing is that it was even better. But it’s not only quality of the sound that makes this album so great it’s everything that woven in between including lyrics, funky beat and of course the irreplaceable voice of Donald Flagen. His voice sounds like a mix of Mike Love from California Girls and Bob Dylan.
There is one thing that bothered me about his vocals in this album, though. I couldn’t help to notice how Donald was obsessed with the accent of every word instead of how he will express himself. So being that style was more important than the expression itself this might be the single biggest mistake they’ve allowed themselves when creating the album. The words are, although harder to get the drift of, witty and almost always intriguing. And that’s where their biggest quality in this album becomes obvious. They can combine these intelligently constructed lyrics criticizing society, drugs and mentioning drugs, love affairs, and crime, with melodic tunes and catchy refrains and verses.
All in all their reached their peak in success with this album proving that they are allowed to carry the tile of musical antiheroes of the seventies. If you are a fan of jazz, rock or funky music with interesting lyrics you shouldn’t miss out on their album Katy Lied.
