More of the Music of Steely Dan
The first two tracks on side two tell you everything you need to know about the sound. Most copies are going to be aggressive. There’s an edge to Fagen’s vocals. It’ll become especially apparent when the backing vocals come in on the line “The rings of rare design.”
If the sound is too midrangy and edgy, you simply do not have a good copy. You will probably not find the experience particularly enjoyable. Rather than getting lost in the music, you may find yourself wondering what the fuss was all about when this classic album came out.
On a musical note, it’s songs like this one and the two that follow that make me realize how energetic an album this is. It’s actually the last high energy album Steely Dan made, second only in that respect to Countdown To Ecstasy.
Here are more of our favorite records for testing energy.
Regarding the importance of energy in the pressings we audition, this commentary on Zuma may be of interest.
Here are a couple of hundred other albums with specific advice on what to listen for.
Checking the Boxes
The Royal Scam is an album we’ve been playing since 1976, and we think we know it well,
It checks off a number of key boxes for us here at Better Records:
Further Reading