Aja - Steely Dan
Track List:
Black Cow
Aja
Deacon Blues
Peg
Home at Last
I got the News
Josie
Songs I have heard before this listening:
Peg and Josie
Songs I think could have been singles:
All of them, seriously, this album has no songs that deserve to be skipped.
Other artists this reminds me of:
Pink Floyd - The focus on sax
Frank Zappa - Doing musical things that work well together but the feel of the music doesn’t always match the lyrics.
Notes on the music:
The biggest thing impression I can think of about this album is styled in a way that it is would be a great cassette to keep in your car (when cars had cassette players). When your radio starts a commercial just press play and no matter where you are in the album you are going to have a good time.
The soundstage is a very polished clean studio sound. The composition and productions is overtly purposeful and intentional. The movements in the pieces seem planned and I expect there was very little improvisation in the recording of this album.
I am not sure how much influence that this album has had on other music. One thing I note is that the band layers jazz on top of disco beats. This reminds me of the current pop and dance music that shares similar approaches to production, it’s not the same styles but the same concept.
Notes on individual Songs
Deacon Blues
This is the song that I enjoyed the most on the album. It’s so happy sounding but the lyrics are talking about the excess and decadence of stardom. The call and response of the narrator talking to himself is very well done, the only other example of using this in song I can think of is Sweating Bullets by Megadeth. The hook of “And die behind the wheel” is phenomenal songwriting.
