I love this article. It's about what my argument would be if I weren't too slack to put real thoughts together:

http://www.popmatters.com/music/columns ... 0410.shtml

i never really gave Steely Dan a chance for some reason (i don't know why) but there seems to be a lot of Obnerites with good taste such as yourself that rate them. I lumped them in with the eagles and got them confused with seve miller band. I'll hit my old man up for some of their old records next time i see him.

I've got nothing against Steely Dan, but the only real reason alot of Indie people hate them is due to the overproduction or excesses of being an exceptionally produced album.
I once read an Ian Mackaye quote where he said he didn't think he could become a rock star until he heard the early punk albums due to growing up in the era of Steely Dan, Alan Parsons and Yes.
I wouldn't say that Steely Dan is anti-rock, I'd just say that their idea of production and recording far exceeds what a normal person can fathom in putting out a record.
Part of a great indie album or rock record is often its flaws rather than perfection.

I'd disagree with that to a certain point. I mean, its true that we trash some of those bands, but look at the people who we herald--Beatles, Brian Wilson, Eno, etc. All studio nerds whose noodling and production is legendary, so I would disagree with the indie rock public hating these records because of production values. I would say more has to do with the fact that they were the radio equivalent then of crap now. I love Steely Dan, but then again I didn't grow up listening to them on the radio, and being shoved down my throat.

Good point. I always figured it was the soft rock 70s sheen. I do like some of their well known songs and own Decade of, but most of it is lost on me.

I started with Decade, and then eventually got all the remasters through BMG. Katy Lied is great, as well as Gaucho. Two underrated albums compared to the monstrous hit Aja. Both are great summertime albums.

I've never cared one one or other about an indie rock aesthetic.
Songs and acts I like have always been on individual terms and I've always been too isolate in my fandom to to take into account whether the act fits anywhere. Much of what I dislike has to do with pretentious bombast for commercial purposes, whether that be the most shrill Streisand or Celine Dion or the most self-absorbed retards like Smile Empty Soul. So, I'm comfortable saying I like Mark Knopfler while at the same time liking The Liars. Doesn't bother me in the least.

There were a number of other acts that tried to be "Dan-ish" but went for a true commerical soft-rock tone, acts like Atlanta Rythm Section. Nothing wrong with them, but they were what Dan-detractors accuse Steely Dan of being -- inoffensive and well-built soft pop for the charts and grocery stores.

But those acts no more achieved The Dan than America achieved Neil Young.

And Steely Dan were snickering the whole time they were charting and becoming "lite-rock icons."

I've always dug these guys, but never felt compelled enough to buy a record. I hear them plenty over the radio.

The Eagles tried to be "important" and only were really worthwhile when they were being funny. Songs like "James Dean" and "Already Gone."

Steve Miller managed to have a 4-decade "classic rock" career without ever actually raising his voice above a Dan Fogleberg lilt and without ever being the rockin' rebel he seemed. He was Christopher Cross masqerading as ZZ Top. Which sounds fun blaring out of your truck on a summer evening in 1978, but it's mighty insubstantial stuff.

Where's Darrin? He needs to add his two cents.

Completely. They kept their jazz-rock roots, and still made money with the mainstream. They did it their own way, and people bought it up. Charlie Haden wasn't doing that. Not to mention, I'd imagine Becker and Fagen on more than one instance probably were laughing that a song was charting that was so blantantly sexual.

Speak for yourself.

I really dig that Super Furry Animals song where they sample Steely Dan for the chorus.

"You know they don't give a fuck about anybody else. You know they don't give a fuck about anybody else. You know they don't give a fuck about anybody else. You know they don't give a fuck about anybody else. You know they don't give a fuck about anybody else. You know they don't give a fuck about anybody else. You know they don't give a fuck about anybody else. You know they don't give a fuck about anybody else. "

I've been getting into Steely Dan this year and really enjoying it. I can easily see how people can hate them, but only on the most superficial grounds.

Side note: If you take all of the criticisms of Steely Dan from the first part of that article and apply them to Genesis, I am in total agreement.

They are slick and smooth. They are jazz-based and blackish. They are sophisticated and polished. They are subtle.

None of these are qualities much embraced by "indie" or DIY antitrendoids. Put them all together in the same artist and they are dead in the water...

(c.f. threads here about jazz...."well, I like Kind of Blue..." )

They capture(d) a period time, and specific places at specific periods of time (LA, Mass) in music that resonates at the cellular level for those who lived that. Druggy and wry. Blood feeds back into the syringe and whoosh... too cool.

God, I fucking hate Steely Dan.

Yeah, their brand of shinola isn't for everyone and even many of those who think it is "for" never really look at how gleefully sinister the lyrics are.

That said, they do have a few emotional direct songs that aren't complete exercises in noodly perversion.

I think "Only A Fool Would Say That" and "Any Major Dude Will Tell You" stand up as honest and powerful tunes even apart from the in-joke, sick-puppy Dan core.

Although I'm a big fan, I completely understand why people would utterly loathe Steely Dan.

However I disagree that they were the antipathy to punk. Steely Dan were punk rock as fuck!

Dead junkie girlfriends, conspiracy theory drummer deaths, Walter Becker recording an album in a wheelchair because he was so wasted on drugs he walked out on to the street and got knocked over by a taxi....

god i love those two songs so much.

Funny you should mention them, as I was just listening to a mix a friend put together. Like previous poster, I always associated or mixed them up with other stuff. Sometimes the production is a bit much.. but again like a previous poster- that is the superficial level that you either peel away or accept it as context (or, of course, stop listening). Oh and the lyrics...sinister indeed.

Good stuff, I think Im actually going to go out and buy some albums today

I started with Countdown to Ecstacy, and I think that's a good one to get. It hooked me pretty much right away.

I utterly loathe Steely Dan. I just file them in the "not going to 'get it'" category. I know tons of people with great taste in music, even very similar tastes to mine, who love them, but I just can't find whatever it is you all find so endearing in them. They just grate on my nerves. Every negative that article mentions is exactly how I feel about them. That they're subversive is cool - I get that part - but the music is just so . . . bleh that I can't even imagine a scenario in which I would want to listen to it. It isn't some elitist thing - I simply do not like them, and have a reaction similar to what someone mentioned in that article has: "They gross me out." Plain and simple, and I don't even claim to fully understand it - but it is exactly how I feel about it.

I wish I did.

Let me clarify that: I know tons of people online with great taste in music. Sadly, I know very few "in real life" that have what I would consider "great taste" in music, but the fun thing is that they probably say exactly the same thing.

how about in rap form