Steely Dan - Can't Buy A Thrill

Released - November 1972

Genre - Jazz Rock

Producer - Gary Katz

Selected Personnel - Donald Fagen (Piano/Keyboards/Organ/Vocals); Walter Becker (Bass/Vocals); Jeff "Skun" Baxter (Guitar); Denny Dias (Guitar); Jim Hodder (Drums/Percussion/Vocals); Victor Feldman (Percussion)

Standout Track - Do It Again

I feel it's sensible, in the writing of these reviews, to re-listen to an album before I write any sort of account to it, particularly so if it's an album I haven't gone back to in some time. On some such occasions, I'm moved to feel almost guilty and frustrated with myself that music I really love and that means a huge amount to me has gone unappreciated for a long time. (I have a very guilty conscience and can be prompted to feel bad about the most trivial of things). This is how I felt when I listened once again to Steely Dan's masterpiece of a debut, Can't Buy A Thrill, for the first time in perhaps over a year. In 2008-9 or thereabouts, Steely Dan were a hugely significant band for me and I hungrily devoured everything I could find of theirs. I owe my awareness of them to my good friend Frith's mum MeiHsian, who is sadly no longer with us. I was talking to MeiHsian about music at some sort of family gathering many years ago and got onto the subject of Supertramp and prog rock (I remember being particularly amused by her insistence that I listen to a song called Focus by a band called Hocus Pocus, and feeling it was ultimately too trivial a mistake for my inner pedant to correct her on it). She commented that if I enjoyed Supertramp I should definitely listen to Steely Dan, and I soon followed up on her recommendation. It might not seem like an obvious link to make, but it was one that certainly had its effect - Steely Dan are a long, long way from the moody eccentricities of British prog, but they share with Supertramp a combined ability to write incredibly catchy, infectious pop-rock music while simultaneously being able to inject it with a wit and intelligence and a sense of craft that elevates it above so much other soft rock of the time. I started, reasonably enough I feel, with the band's debut album, and I still think it's perhaps their finest, most consistent and clear work, and the perfect point to start getting into them.

Perhaps what sets Steely Dan's music apart from so much other classic rock of the era is the uniqueness of the band's setup and guiding principles. While it did have something of a stable lineup for a while (involving guitarists Denny Dias and Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, and drummer Jim Hodder), essentially it was always the pet project of its two originators and co-songwriters, bassist Walter Becker and keyboardist and singer Donald Fagen. Becker and Fagen had met in college in New York and struck up a musical partnership, immersing themselves in the Beatnik lifestyle of late 60s Manhattan and playing in a variety of local bands to limited success. Only when their mutual friend Gary Katz moved out to LA to become a music producer did they begin to get a glimpse of their future as musical legends - Katz recruited the two as songwriters for ABC Records, but the record company soon cottoned on to the fact that the kind of material Becker and Fagen were producing was too complex to be handed out to other artists, and so Dias, Baxter and Hodder were drafted in to complete a band lineup and to develop the newly christened Steely Dan (named after a make of dildo in William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch) as an artist in their own right. Despite the presence of guitarists and a drummer to legitimise them as a "proper" band, Steely Dan would always be something crafted and sculpted by the whims and perfectionism of their two leaders. As such, things sound refreshingly different from what was going on elsewhere in rock music at the time - with keyboardist Fagen and bassist Becker calling the shots, the majority of the songs are keyboard-driven, with the guitars kept largely for ornamentation via the odd solo (the guitar solo on the brilliant "Reelin' In The Years" has become almost iconic, although it's outdone by the solo on "Change Of The Guard").

Becker and Fagen were also such perfectionists that, even with their stable lineup, they would continue to bring in a whole host of session musicians for every album (by the time of 1980's Gaucho, they were recruiting over 40 musicians to play on one record), and this fine-tuned attention to detail makes for a sound that is meticulous and clear while never being soulless or devoid of any real grit. One simply gets a sense listening to Can't Buy A Thrill that this is the result of work by a couple of guys who are wholeheartedly devoted to every facet of their craft. The songwriting itself is refreshingly different as well, with Becker and Fagen drawing influence from diverse musical styles and backgrounds. The career-best opener, "Do It Again," is heavily influenced by Latin jazz, with its slow, shuffling rhythms propelling forward the loping organ riffs, while the obligatory guitar solo is replaced by Dias's brilliant electric sitar solo. The song also gives us our first glimpse of Fagen's vocals, which would become a defining characteristic of the band's music. Similarly strangled and weird-sounding to the timeless voice of Randy Newman, Fagen's voice nonetheless caused him a great deal of embarrassment, no doubt down to its unconventional sound. Although he could sing on record, the prospect of singing in front of a live audience terrified him and on Can't Buy A Thrill he shares lead vocal duties with singer David Palmer, who takes the lead on a number of songs. Palmer isn't a bad singer, but his voice sounds like it belongs in a more bland, conventional soft rock group like Chicago, with none of the sass and charisma of Fagen.

"Kings" is one of the best simple pop songs the band ever recorded, again driven by Fagen's brilliant, slouching piano and boasting the finest, chest-beating chorus of any song in the band's discography, then there's the timeless hit single "Reelin' In The Years." The focus on Can't Buy A Thrill is much more on concise, radio-friendly pop songwriting rather than jazzy indulgence as they would come to shift towards on their future work, and "Reelin' In The Years," with its unforgettable guitar riff and catchy chorus, is another fine example. Things do get a bit more jazzy and unusual on "Fire In The Hole," another one of the band's very best songs. Fagen's piano is jazzier and bluesier and cooler than ever, and he finds time to let loose on a tantalisingly restrained, rolling solo partway through that ranks as one of his best moments, while the sing-along chorus of "Change Of The Guard" is another album highlight. In general, Can't Buy A Thrill is perhaps a little anomalous in the wider context of the band's work - it's the closest they came to an album consisting entirely of radio-friendly pop hits and only songs like "Do It Again" and "Fire In The Hole" really carry any sense that this band would become one of the great jazz pioneers within rock music in a few years. But, safe and conventional as a lot of the songwriting here may be, it still sounds excitingly new compared to so much other generic rock of the time, by virtue of Fagen, Becker and Katz's meticulous and innovative approach to studio production and down to the sheer imagination and creativity of Fagen and Becker, who manage to just about keep the listener on their toes even when the music threatens to become predictable.

The album spawned two hit singles in "Do It Again" and "Reelin' In The Years" and marked Steely Dan out as a highly capable and interesting new artist to look out for. Of course, the band would slowly shift in its approach and sensibilities over the following years. Becker and Katz, feeling they much preferred Fagen's interpretations of songs to Palmer's, gradually convinced him to take over lead vocal duties, prompting Palmer's departure, and not long after the band would retire from live performance to focus on recording. This was no doubt down to Fagen's stage fright in part, and it also meant that the notion of the group as a regular band became even less well defined. Without having to keep half an eye on taking songs out on the road, Becker and Fagen could really indulge their imaginations, their jazzy sensibilities and their perfectionism in the studio, relying increasingly on legions of session musicians rather than one core lineup and writing songs that became increasingly sprawling and unusual in place of their early radio hits. This metamorphosis came slowly, and their next album would not be so very different from their first, but the journey towards becoming one of the most innovative American rock groups of the 70s all started here, with this timeless masterpiece.

Track Listing:

All songs written by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen.

1. Do It Again

2. Dirty Work

3. Kings

4. Midnight Cruiser

5. Only A Fool Would Say That

6. Reelin' In The Years

7. Fire In The Hole

8. Brooklyn (Owes The Charmer Under Me)

9. Change Of The Guard

10. Turn That Heartbeat Over Again