Richard Wright’s favourite Steely Dan album: “It insists I listen to it immediately”
Sometimes, we can exhaust ourselves trying to understand the minds of creatives. When you consider someone like Richard Wright, who made a massive contribution to Pink Floyd and helped with their complicated, connected albums, if we try to dissect each of those pieces of work and understand how they were put together, we ruin their magic. Instead, it is worth accepting that Wright was a musical phenomenon and leaving it at that.
He could see beyond the notes he was playing and instead expanded his mind, moving further back to see the big picture and working out how what he was doing could be used as part of a more extensive LP. That kind of mindset and attitude towards music, which was shared by a lot of members of Pink Floyd, led to their creation of some of the most innovative and exciting albums in recent years.
Wright loved the song, constantly committing himself to the art of songwriting and fully enveloping himself in the complexities of making music. Another band that shared his commitment to songwriting was Steely Dan. They were pretty controversial to some, as they decided to commit themselves to songwriting so much that they moved away from performing live, seeing the translation of studio songs to live shows as a hindrance.
Their decision not to perform live meant they could experiment with different recording techniques, musical passages and instruments without worrying about how they would play those songs live. They made many exciting albums in the process, which championed different aspects of the band. So, given Wright and Steely Dan had similar attitudes regarding songwriting, looking at the bigger picture and being experimental, what was his favourite album of theirs?
When asked, Richard Wright quickly offered Steely Dan’s The Royal Scam. “Another wonderful band. There’s something about the title track that insists I listen to it immediately,” he said. “I might not have heard it for six or seven years, but it’s been implanted in my brain, and that’s what I think makes favourite records, things that you can’t get out of your head.”
The Royal Scam was the fifth album released by Steely Dan and was well-received in the US, peaking at number 15 in the charts. The theme is littered with cryptic clues, as was typical for the band, as they embraced their unique songwriting approach to truly engage with their creativity, going as far as their minds could take them. Featuring tracks such as ‘Haitian Divorce’ ‘Kid Charlemagne’ and ‘The Fez’, the album is considered by many to be one of the band’s very best.
Though Pink Floyd and Steely Dan were relatively different musical outfits, parallels can be drawn between them, especially in their approach to creativity when putting albums together. As such, it’s interesting to read about Richard Wright’s favourite Steely Dan album, given that what they achieved with their music aligned with what he was looking to accomplish with Pink Floyd.
