One great thing about the revival of vinyl albums, the ones done in the 1970s never sounded better, as while the analog recordings were first rate, this was also the time of the oil embargo, meaning the vinyl itself was inferior quality. Thus, this recent reissue of Steely Dan’s second album has literally never sounded warmer.
To put the album in perspective, this was the second release by the “original” Steely Dan team of Denny Dias/g, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter/g-psg, Walter Becker/b-voc, Jim Hodder/dr/voc and Donald Fagen/p-key-voc. They were still considered a “rock” group at the time, although their jazz leanings were starting to pop up, here, with saxes by Lanny Morgan, Bill Perkins, Ernie Watts and John Rotella brought in on “My Old School”, Victor Feldman adding vibes to a number of tunes, and Ray Brown slapping his bass on ”Razor Boy”. Rocker Rick Derringer also does a cameo on “Show Biz Kids”, and almost all of these tunes were big hits of the year. “Bodhisattva” was a boogie-ing two stepper, Fagen’s clever lyrics were already there as on “Your Gold Teeth” and “King of the World” and there’s always the anthem “My Old School” that still sounds fresh.
The album was widely praised at the time, and still stands up remarkably well, even with the hindsight that they would exponentially grow musically while breaking apart personally, with group changes on the horizon. Stay tuned!