I Want a Name When I Lose

This Onion piece, "Donald Fagen Defends Steely Dan to Friends", doesn't fully hit the mark, but is still funny. Longtime readers may know that until I started going out with John, I didn't like Steely Dan, even thinking they were "processed" and "sleazy." I was right--but I was so, so wrong. John, ably assisted by DJ Dan Tures, took the opportunity of my being immobilized by serious illness to teach me the magic of Steely Dan. And Finn Family Moomintroll. He's great like that.

"Look, I understand. It's an acquired taste," Fagen said after putting his group's 1978 hit "Deacon Blues" on the bar's jukebox. "I wasn't that into it at first, either. But when you really listen to the unbelievable production values and the wry, perfectly crafted lyrics—it's just great art, okay? You should definitely give 'the Dan' a shot."

Fagen went on to cite additional evidence in defense of his admiration for the music, including the disparate jazz, R&B, and blues influences that pervade the band's music, and the ultraclean sound that became the group's hallmark....

Though Fagen remains loyal to Steely Dan and more or less has reverence for the band's entire catalog, he said that he is the first to admit the shortcomings of the music.

"No one knows better than I do that this stuff can get extremely self-indulgent," Fagen said. "And, yes, I realize that all the preciousness and apparent awe at its own cleverness can be a little too much to stomach sometimes. Hell, some of Gaucho is even too goddamned smooth for me."

Comments

[The Modesto Kid]

I want a name when I lose

Referenced just recently by NickS.

Steely Dan and Moomintroll are two very good things but I'm not sure how well they would go together -- they speak to sort of broadly different regions of my consciousness, I think.

[Scott Lemieux]

Huh. You know it's a special marriage, because I thought nobody was ever converted to Steely Dan fandom (at least by proselytizing friends/partners.) But chain lightning feels so good!

[picsoj]

Monique, a Leaf fan, originate this plumb well-defined to believe. Now, let me goal out that this was in no way an try to official one pair is raise than the other. It was upright a regarding to official two things.