Steely Dan

Steely Dan – Countdown To Ecstasy (Analogue Productions 2023) (1973/2023)
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 40:55 minutes | Full Scans included | 1,86 GB
Genre: Jazz Rock, Pop Rock | Publisher (label): nalogue Productions – CAPP 135 SA

Countdown To Ecstasy — Steely Dan’s gold-selling second studio album reissue

Hybrid Stereo SACD release from Analogue Productions!

Mastered direct to DSD from the original master tape by Bernie Grundman

Plays in all CD and SACD players

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Steely Dan – Pretzel Logic (Analogue Productions 2023) (1974/2023)
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 33:51 minutes | Full Scans included | 1,43 GB
Genre: Jazz Rock, Pop Rock, Classic Rock | Publisher (label): Analogue Productions – CAPP 136 SA

Pretzel Logic — Steely Dan’s gold-selling third studio album reissue

Hybrid Stereo SACD release from Analogue Productions!

Mastered direct to DSD from the original master tape by Bernie Grundman

Plays in all CD and SACD players

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Steely Dan – Can’t Buy A Thrill (Analogue Productions 2023) (1972/2023)
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 41:17 minutes | Full Scans included | 1,7 GB
Genre: Pop Rock, Classic Rock | Publisher (label): Analogue Productions – CAPP 134 SA

Steely Dan’s platinum-selling debut studio album Can’t Buy A Thrill, released in November 1972, was a commercial success, peaking at No. 17 on the Billboard chart. It later appeared on many professional listings of the greatest albums, including Colin Larkin’s All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000) and Rolling Stone magazine’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” (2003)

The album was written by band members Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, recorded in August 1972 at The Village Recorder in Los Angeles, and produced by Gary Katz. Its music features tight song structure and sounds from soft rock, folk rock, and pop, alongside philosophical, elliptical lyrics. Two songs recorded during the Can’t Buy A Thrill sessions were left off the album and released as a single: “Dallas” b/w “Sail the Waterway.” This is the only Steely Dan album to include David Palmer as a lead vocalist, having been recruited after Donald Fagen expressed concerns over singing live. Drummer Jim Hodder also chips in lead vocals on one song, “Midnite Cruiser” (sometimes spelled “Midnight Cruiser”), as well as singing the “Dallas” single. By the time recording of the next album began, the band and producer Gary Katz had convinced Fagen to assume the full lead vocalist role.

AllMusic gave the album 4.5 stars, with reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine praising the core duo Walter Becker and Donald Fagen as “remarkable craftsmen.” Erlewine noted that “there are very few of the jazz flourishes that came to distinguish their (later) albums”, but added that the first single from the album, “Do It Again,” incorporates a tight Latin jazz beat, while the second single, “Reelin’ In the Years,” features jazzy guitar solos and harmonies.

Rolling Stone, in its review, said the debut album was a collection of some of the group’s best jazz/rock songs.

“Two of Fagen’s four (vocal solo) songs were the singles, ‘Do It Again’ and ‘Reelin’ In The Years,’ the later starting off (and continues throughout) with a ripping solo by session player, Elliot Randall, and in fact, was rated by Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page as his favourite guitar solo of all time. That’s quite an endorsement. The song peaked at No. 11 on the Billboard Charts. ‘Do It Again’ charted at No. 6, making it their second highest chart for a single. ‘Dirty Work,’ another great song from the record features Palmer. The album is tight, with some of the best musicianship money can buy.” — Rolling Stone

The album cover features a photomontage by Robert Lockart that includes an image of a line of prostitutes, standing in a red-light area from Rouen in France waiting for clients. The image was chosen because of its relevance to the album title. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen themselves commented on the album art in their liner notes to the reissued The Royal Scam, saying that The Royal Scam album possessed “the most hideous album cover of the seventies, bar none (excepting perhaps Can’t Buy A Thrill).” The cover was banned in Francisco Franco’s Spain and was replaced with a photograph of the band playing in concert.

After a brief battle with esophageal cancer, Walter Becker died on September 3, 2017 at the age of 67. Steely Dan has sold more than 40 million albums worldwide and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March 2001. VH1 ranked Steely Dan at No. 82 on their list of the 100 Greatest Musical Artists of All Time. Rolling Stone ranked them No. 15 on its list of the 20 Greatest Duos of All Time.

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Steely Dan – Everything Must Go (Analogue Productions 2022) (2003/2022) SACD ISO
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 42:36 minutes | Full Scans included | 1,77 GB
Genre: Jazz Rock, Fusion | Publisher (label): Analogue Productions – CAPP 142 SA

Everything Must Go was Steely Dan’s second album after their 20-year studio hiatus spanning 1980 through 2000, when they released Two Against Nature. Everything Must Go is the last studio album with founding member Walter Becker before his death in 2017 and their most recent album to date.

Analogue Productions is honored to reissue the Steely Dan album catalog in a way that best shares the group’s unmistakable sound with decades of devoted fans. Each Hybrid SACD reissue in the Analogue Productions Steely Dan Series is newly remastered by Bernie Grundman from the original master tape direct to DSD. The result is more sonic punch and more expression captured from the tape.

Founded by core members Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, Steely Dan’s popularity rose throughout the late 1970s on, and their seven albums over that period of time blended elements of jazz, rock, funk, R&B, and pop. Steely Dan created a sophisticated, distinctive sound with accessible melodic hooks, complex harmonies and time signatures, and a devotion to the recording studio. Becker and Fagen, with producer Gary Katz, gradually changed Steely Dan from a performing band to a studio project, hiring session musicians to record their compositions. The duo didn’t perform live between 1974 and 1993. But their popularity nevertheless grew throughout the ’70s as their albums became critical favorites and their singles became staples of Adult Oriented Radio and pop radio stations.

Becker (bass) and Fagen (vocals, keyboards) were the core members of Steely Dan throughout its incarnations. Since reuniting in 1993, Steely Dan has toured steadily and released two albums of new material, the first of which, Two Against Nature (2000) earned a Grammy Award for Album of the Year.

They followed up with Everything Must Go (2003). The album drew a 71 favorable review score on the review compilation site Metacritic.com, with Launch.com summing up their findings: “Everything Must Go is another great Steely Dan album, a hardy inclusion to their splendid canon.” Blender said: “Though their restraint can be alienating, Steely Dan sound hungry, relevant and full of ideas.”

After a brief battle with esophageal cancer, Walter Becker died on September 3, 2017 at the age of 67. Steely Dan has sold more than 40 million albums worldwide and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March 2001. VH1 ranked Steely Dan at No. 82 on their list of the 100 Greatest Musical Artists of All Time. Rolling Stone ranked them No. 15 on its list of the 20 Greatest Duos of All Time.

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Steely Dan – Two Against Nature (Analogue Productions 2022) (200/2022)
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 51:32 minutes | Full Scans included | 2,21 GB
Genre: Pop Rock, Fusion | Publisher (label): Analogue Productions – CAPP 141SA

wo Against Nature — Steely Dan’s Grammy winner for Album of the Year!

The brilliance of Steely Dan on Hybrid SACD from Analogue Productions!

Newly remastered from the original analog tape by Bernie Grundman direct to DSD

Housed in a super jewel case box

Two Against Nature brought Steely Dan renewed commercial and critical success. Their first studio album after a 20-year hiatus, the album was released on February 29, 2000. At Metacritic.com, which assigns a normalized rating on a scale of 100 to reviews from professional critics, the album drew a “generally favorable” average score of 77, based on 13 reviews.

Writing in March 2000 for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau applauded the music as an excellent “rock comeback” and a “jumpier and snappier, sourer and trickier and less soothing” iteration of the jazz pop featured on Steely Dan’s 1977 album Aja, describing it as “postfunk.” Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic appreciated the “sharp humor” in the lyrics, but was especially impressed by the music’s “depth and character,” as he observed “nearly endless permutations within their signature sound.”

Acoustic Sounds is honored to reissue the Steely Dan album catalog in a way that best shares the group’s unmistakable sound with decades of devoted fans. Each Hybrid SACD reissue in the Analogue Productions Steely Dan Series is newly remastered by Bernie Grundman from the original master tape direct to DSD. The result is more sonic punch and more expression captured from the tape.

Founded by core members Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, Steely Dan’s popularity rose throughout the late 1970s on, and their seven albums over that period of time blended elements of jazz, rock, funk, R&B, and pop. Steely Dan created a sophisticated, distinctive sound with accessible melodic hooks, complex harmonies and time signatures, and a devotion to the recording studio. Becker and Fagen, with producer Gary Katz, gradually changed Steely Dan from a performing band to a studio project, hiring session musicians to record their compositions. The duo didn’t perform live between 1974 and 1993. But their popularity nevertheless grew throughout the ’70s as their albums became critical favorites and their singles became staples of Adult Oriented Radio and pop radio stations.

Becker (bass) and Fagen (vocals, keyboards) were the core members of Steely Dan throughout its incarnations. Since reuniting in 1993, Steely Dan has toured steadily and released two albums of new material, the first of which, Two Against Nature (2000) earned a Grammy Award at the 2001 ceremony for Album of the Year as well as three other Grammys: Best Pop Vocal Album, Best Engineered Album — Non-Classical, and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal (for the single “Cousin Dupree”). Commercially, it peaked at No. 6 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart and sold more than 1 million copies, earning a platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America.

After a brief battle with esophageal cancer, Walter Becker died on September 3, 2017 at the age of 67. Steely Dan has sold more than 40 million albums worldwide and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March 2001. VH1 ranked Steely Dan at No. 82 on their list of the 100 Greatest Musical Artists of All Time. Rolling Stone ranked them No. 15 on its list of the 20 Greatest Duos of All Time.

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Steely Dan – Pretzel Logic (1974) [Japanese Limited SHM-SACD 2014]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 33:52 minutes | Scans included | 1,39 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Full Scans included | 700 MB

Countdown to Ecstasy wasn’t half the hit that Can’t Buy a Thrill was, and Steely Dan responded by trimming the lengthy instrumental jams that were scattered across Countdown and concentrating on concise songs for Pretzel Logic. While the shorter songs usually indicate a tendency toward pop conventions, that’s not the case with Pretzel Logic. Instead of relying on easy hooks, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen assembled their most complex and cynical set of songs to date. Dense with harmonics, countermelodies, and bop phrasing, Pretzel Logic is vibrant with unpredictable musical juxtapositions and snide, but very funny, wordplay. Listen to how the album’s hit single, “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” opens with a syncopated piano line that evolves into a graceful pop melody, or how the title track winds from a blues to a jazzy chorus — Becker and Fagen’s craft has become seamless while remaining idiosyncratic and thrillingly accessible. Since the songs are now paramount, it makes sense that Pretzel Logic is less of a band-oriented album than Countdown to Ecstasy, yet it is the richest album in their catalog, one where the backhanded Dylan tribute “Barrytown” can sit comfortably next to the gorgeous “Any Major Dude Will Tell You.” Steely Dan made more accomplished albums than Pretzel Logic, but they never made a better one.

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Steely Dan – Gaucho (1980) [Reissue 2003]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 37:44 minutes | Scans included | 2,47 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | 38:03 min | Scans included | 799 MB
Features 2.0 Stereo and 5.1 multichannel surround sound

Aja was cool, relaxed, and controlled; it sounded deceptively easy. Its follow-up, Gaucho, while sonically similar, is its polar opposite: a precise and studied record, where all of the seams show. Gaucho essentially replicates the smooth jazz-pop of Aja, but with none of that record’s dark, seductive romance or elegant aura. Instead, it’s meticulous and exacting; each performance has been rehearsed so many times that it no longer has any emotional resonance. Furthermore, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen’s songs are generally labored, only occasionally reaching their past heights, like on the suave “Babylon Sisters,” “Time Out of Mind,” and “Hey Nineteen.” Still, those three songs are barely enough to make the remainder of the album’s glossy, meandering fusion worthwhile.

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Steely Dan – Gaucho (1980) [Japanese Limited SHM-SACD 2010 # UIGY-9039]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 37:43 minutes | Scans included | 1,53 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 742 MB

Features the 2010 DSD mastering based on Japanese original analog tape. Reissue features the high-fidelity SHM-SACD format (fully compatible with standard SACD player, but it does not play on standard CD players). DSD Transferred by Manabu Matsumura.

Aja was cool, relaxed, and controlled; it sounded deceptively easy. Its follow-up, Gaucho, while sonically similar, is its polar opposite: a precise and studied record, where all of the seams show. Gaucho essentially replicates the smooth jazz-pop of Aja, but with none of that record’s dark, seductive romance or elegant aura. Instead, it’s meticulous and exacting; each performance has been rehearsed so many times that it no longer has any emotional resonance. Furthermore, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen’s songs are generally labored, only occasionally reaching their past heights, like on the suave “Babylon Sisters,” “Time Out of Mind,” and “Hey Nineteen.” Still, those three songs are barely enough to make the remainder of the album’s glossy, meandering fusion worthwhile.

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Steely Dan – Countdown To Ecstasy (1973) [Japanese Limited SHM-SACD 2014 # UIGY-9566]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 41:14 minutes | Scans included | 1,69 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Full Scans included | 871 MB

Can’t Buy a Thrill became an unexpected hit, and as a response, Donald Fagen became the group’s full-time lead vocalist, and he and Walter Becker acted like Steely Dan was a rock & roll band for the group’s second album, Countdown to Ecstasy. The loud guitars and pronounced backbeat of “Bodhisattva,” “Show Biz Kids,” and “My Old School” camouflage the fact that Countdown is a riskier album, musically speaking, than its predecessor. Each of its eight songs have sophisticated, jazz-inflected interludes, and apart from the bluesy vamps “Bodhisattva” and “Show Biz Kids,” which sound like they were written for the stage, the songs are subtly textured. “Razor Boy,” with its murmuring vibes, and the hard bop tribute “Your Gold Teeth” reveal Becker and Fagen’s jazz roots, while the country-flavored “Pearl of the Quarter” and the ominous, skittering “King of the World” are both overlooked gems. Countdown to Ecstasy is the only time Steely Dan played it relatively straight, and its eight songs are rich with either musical or lyrical detail that their album rock or art rock contemporaries couldn’t hope to match.

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Steely Dan – Aja (1977) [Japanese Limited SHM-SACD 2010 # UIGY-9026]
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 39:40 minutes | Scans included | 1,6 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 773 MB

Features the 2010 DSD mastering. Reissue features the high-fidelity SHM-SACD format (fully compatible with standard SACD player, but it does not play on standard CD players). DSD Transferred by Hitoshi Takiguchi.

Steely Dan hadn’t been a real working band since Pretzel Logic, but with Aja, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen’s obsession with sonic detail and fascination with composition reached new heights. A coolly textured and immaculately produced collection of sophisticated jazz-rock, Aja has none of the overt cynicism or self-consciously challenging music that distinguished previous Steely Dan records. Instead, it’s a measured and textured album, filled with subtle melodies and accomplished, jazzy solos that blend easily into the lush instrumental backdrops. But Aja isn’t just about texture, since Becker and Fagen’s songs are their most complex and musically rich set of songs — even the simplest song, the sunny pop of “Peg,” has layers of jazzy vocal harmonies. In fact, Steely Dan ignores rock on Aja, preferring to fuse cool jazz, blues, and pop together in a seamless, seductive fashion. It’s complex music delivered with ease, and although the duo’s preoccupation with clean sound and self-consciously sophisticated arrangements would eventually lead to a dead end, Aja is a shining example of jazz-rock at its finest.

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