Every Steely Dan album ranked
Over nearly 50 years, just about everyone has stolen from Steely Dan at one point or another. The idea of giving pop music more complexity or infusing rock with jazz wasn’t original to Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. They just happened to be better at creating this potent combination than anyone else in the world.
That said, it took them a bit of time to get there. First, they had to graduate from songwriter-for-hire status and actually get a record deal. To do that in the rock-crazed early 1970s, you needed a band. So Becker and Fagen found one, complete with versatile guitarists Denny Dias, Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter, drummer/vocalist Jim Hodder, and a set of hired guns. When Fagen became shy about his singing voice, David Palmer was brought in to be the band’s frontman.
Almost immediately, Becker and Fagen began dismantling this version of the band in favour of keeping complete control of themselves. By the mid-1970s, Steely Dan was off the road and revamped themselves to revolve solely around Becker and Fagen’s songwriting skills. Even Becker didn’t appear on certain songs after this period: perfection required that nothing get in the way, not even the members themselves.
With a rotating cast of the best session musicians in America, Steely Dan began crafting albums around complex ideas of hipsterism, failure, cynicism, and dry wit. A completely new sound was conceived, one that allowed space for jazz chords as well as pop melodies. Songs could be radio smashes or ten-minute odysseys. There was room for just about anything in the world of Steely Dan as long as it was approved by Becker and Fagen.
The duo spearheaded nine album under the Steely Dan name: seven from their classic period and two after they reconvened in the 1990s. The material that makes up these LPs represent some of the most beloved and underrated music that ever sold millions of records. The most remarkable thing about Steely Dan was that, no matter how complex they became, they never alienated the average radio listener.
Here are all nine Steely Dan albums, ranked from worst to best.
Every Steely Dan album ranked in order of greatness:
Everything Must Go (2003)
It’s a little unfair to pit the two post-reunion Steely Dan albums against their classic work. For most, it was just nice that Walter Becker and Donald Fagen were back together and touring the world behind their back catalogue. But during the 2000s, Becker and Fagen felt the need to try out some new songs to see if they still had the songwriting chemistry.
While their musical instincts were still sharp, nothing in either 2000’s Two Against Nature or 2003’s Everything Must Go can hold a candle to even the band’s worst songs from the 1970s. Everything Must Go is a mostly turgid and strangely sad affair, with sagging ruminations on death overpowering the small modicum of dry wit that the duo still had.
Two Against Nature (2000)
Two Against Nature mostly gets remembered today for beating out Radiohead’s Kid A, Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP, and Beck’s Midnite Vultures for the ‘Album of the Year’ Grammy Award in 2001. Grammys are pointless, and Steely Dan managed to get the overdue legacy vote, so nothing about Two Against Nature feels particularly savoury.
That being said, the album is actually quite enjoyable if you keep your expectations relaxed. Becker and Fagen certainly sound like they’re having fun playing together again, and while tracks like ‘Jack of Speed’ and ‘What a Shame About Me’ might not be classics, they’re certainly more energetic and lively than anything on Everything Must Go.
The Royal Scam (1976)
Even Steely Dan can get a little too far up their own asses. No longer worried that their highfalutin approach to pop music would alienate average listeners, the Dan let it all hang out on the ambitious The Royal Scam. From the very first notes of album opener ‘Kid Charlemagne’, it sounds as though Becker and Fagen have already signed off for their most impressive album yet.
And then The Royal Scam just kind of floats through its eight other songs. One key to Steely Dan’s success was that they still found room for pop hooks and accessible melodies in their most complex work. That’s what’s missing on this album. Most of The Royal Scam either stalls or sounds derivative of the band’s other work. Tracks like ‘Haitian Divorce’ and ‘The Fez’ sound absolutely coked to the gills, leaving The Royal Scam ill-defined and directionless at times. The Dan’s ambitions and abilities are on full display, but their crossover charm is absent.
Can’t Buy a Thrill (1972)
On the flip side of The Royal Scam is Can’t Buy a Thrill, the most basic and contemporary album that Steely Dan ever released. In truth, Can’t Buy a Thrill is only a Steely Dan album in name: it represents the brief period when the group was actually a band rather than a vehicle for Becker and Fagen. It’s the band’s debut, so the sophistication of later albums is absent, leaving most of the tracks trying to fit in with the rest of the early 1970s rock world.
But what a set of tracks to get started with: ‘Do It Again’, ‘Reelin’ in the Years’, and ‘Only a Fool Would Say That’ are classic rock gems, while one-time lead singer David Palmer gets a great song of his own in ‘Dirty Work’. Steely Dan, as the world knew and loved them, wasn’t really in existence until after Can’t Buy a Thrill, but the band’s solid debut makes for an easy entry point for Steely Dan before things get a bit headier.
Gaucho (1980)
The final album from Steely Dan’s initial run, Gaucho, is about as strung out and bare-bones as anything that the band had ever done. With just seven songs and a prominent role played by a drum machine, Gaucho is dependent on a steady groove and slightly sterile production. It’s a tricky listen to handle at first, and an album that is almost impossible to love.
But once you sit with the coldness and sarcasm of Gacuho for a while, the album’s charms become apparent. ‘Hey Nineteen’ is another portrait of hipster lunacy, while ‘Babylon Sisters’ and ‘Glamour Profession’ make side one a rollicking good time. Side two is a bit slighter, but the sheer attention to detail is enough to elevate Gacuho beyond its own discontent and self-loathing.
Countdown to Ecstasy (1973)
Becker and Fagen were also looking to change the direction of Steely Dan. Can’t Buy a Thrill put them right in the middle of the road, somewhere between rock and pop without much definition. Honing in on their signature sound, Becker and Fagen embraced their knowledge of jazz and mixed it together with some more expressive rock solos and pop hooks to create their first classic album, Countdown to Ecstasy.
The band’s first truly inspired work, Countdown to Ecstasy contains three songs that every Steely Dan fanatic needs to know by heart: ‘Bodhisattva’, ‘Show Biz Kids’, and ‘My Old School’. The rest of the album cuts range from serviceable to surprisingly enthralling, with ‘Your Gold Teeth’ and ‘King of the World’ tapping into the hipster aura that would soon become part and parcel of the band’s existence.
Katy Lied (1975)
Here’s the knock against Katy Lied: it’s a bit of a shameless rehash. All of the lessons that the band learned on Pretzel Logic would be duplicated on Katy Lied: get top-shelf session musicians to find the balance between funk, soul, pop, and jazz, put some clever lyrics over the top, and fuse it all together. There’s even a literal sequel song, ‘Your Gold Teeth II’, within the album’s tracklisting.
But if the main criticism of Katy Lied is that Steely Dan found what worked and did it again, that’s actually more of a compliment. Casual listeners get ‘Black Friday’ and ‘Bad Sneakers’, real heads get ‘Dr. Wu’ and ‘Everyone’s Gone to the Movies’, and everyone gets hidden gems like ‘Chain Lightning’ and ‘Daddy Don’t Live in That New York City No More’. Katy Lied is a grand celebration of everything Steely Dan, even if it’s not the band in true innovation mode.
Pretzel Logic (1974)
Walter Becker and Donald Fagen had figured it out: they didn’t need a band. They had a name, which was a good excuse for them to take hold of Steely Dan’s identity, shape it around themselves, and create some of the smoothest music ever made.
Pretzel Logic is the perfect nexus point between Steely Dan getting sophisticated and still wanting to be a mainstream rock band. ‘Rikki Don’t Lose That Number’ is a bona fide pop smash, ‘Night By Night’ is dirty funk music, ‘Any Major Dude Will Tell You’ is delectable, and ‘East St. Louis Toodle-oo’ is the jazz that the duo always wanted to make. It’s a smorgasbord of great songs, but it’s not the best thing that Steely Dan ever did.
Aja (1977)
Everything you need to know about Steely Dan can be found within the grooves of Aja. It’s a meticulously crafted jazz record that still appeals to rock fans and pop nerds alike. Pop hits like ‘Peg’ and ‘Josie’ could still rub elbows with the complex soloing of ‘Aja’ and the dense dreaminess of ‘Deacon Blues’. Somehow, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen found a way to have their cake and eat it, too.
Aja hasn’t lost any of its charm and subversion in the four decades since its initial release. It’s still a perfectly rendered, beautifully produced, fully fleshed-out masterpiece that propelled Walter Becker and Donald Fagen to the forefront as music’s madcap geniuses. It never really got any better than Aja, but it never needed to. Aja is the kind of album that any musician would love to hang their legacy on.
