| Citizen Steely Dan | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Box set by | ||||
| Released | December 14, 1993 | |||
| Recorded | 1972–1980 | |||
| Genre | Rock | |||
| Length | 287:02 | |||
| Label | MCA | |||
| Producer | Gary Katz | |||
| Steely Dan chronology | ||||
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| Review scores | |
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| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [1] |
Citizen Steely Dan is a four-CD box set compilation album by Steely Dan, released in 1993.
The set is a collection of all of Steely Dan's albums (up to 1980) in chronological order, and also contains a 1991 remix of the non-album single "FM (No Static at All)", a non-album B-side "Bodhisattva (Live)", 1978 Greatest Hits compilation only track "Here at the Western World", and a previously unreleased demo of "Everyone's Gone to the Movies" (a song from their 1975 album Katy Lied ).
The set is not a complete compilation of every track released by Steely Dan up to 1993. Missing are both sides of the band's 1972 debut single ("Dallas" b/w "Sail the Waterway"), neither of which has ever been re-issued on CD, because of the band's dislike of the songs. The compilation was the first release of the remastered versions of Steely Dan's albums until the remastered studio albums were issued in 1998.
The first pressing features "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" using the single edit of the song. This version omits the percussive opening for the song. The second pressing of the box set features the version from the album although it was reissued without any information noting the change.[ citation needed ]
Glenn Meadows remastered the CD set from the digital masters archived by Donald Fagen, Gary Katz and Roger Nichols in 1982. The digital tapes were prepared because the original analog tapes were in very poor shape. The earliest CD mastering for all the Steely Dan albums in 1985 used these digital tapes but MCA used deteriorating analog masters for all later CD pressings until the 1998 remasters. This information was revealed by Nichols in 1991 when asked about his opinion of the Mobile Fidelity Gold reissues of Aja and Gaucho. Nichols remarked that the "Gaucho CD was even a different speed, about a quarter tone sharper" when compared to the original CD that he was involved in. [2]
All tracks are written by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, except where noted
| No. | Title | Origin | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Do It Again" | Can't Buy a Thrill (1972) | 5:54 |
| 2. | "Dirty Work" | Can't Buy a Thrill | 3:08 |
| 3. | "Kings" | Can't Buy a Thrill | 3:45 |
| 4. | "Midnite Cruiser" | Can't Buy a Thrill | 4:06 |
| 5. | "Only a Fool Would Say That" | Can't Buy a Thrill | 2:55 |
| 6. | "Reelin' in the Years" | Can't Buy a Thrill | 4:36 |
| 7. | "Fire in the Hole" | Can't Buy a Thrill | 3:26 |
| 8. | "Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me)" | Can't Buy a Thrill | 4:19 |
| 9. | "Change of the Guard" | Can't Buy a Thrill | 3:38 |
| 10. | "Turn That Heartbeat Over Again" | Can't Buy a Thrill | 4:58 |
| 11. | "Bodhisattva" | Countdown to Ecstasy (1973) | 5:17 |
| 12. | "Razor Boy" | Countdown to Ecstasy | 3:10 |
| 13. | "The Boston Rag" | Countdown to Ecstasy | 3:10 |
| 14. | "Your Gold Teeth" | Countdown to Ecstasy | 6:59 |
| 15. | "Show Biz Kids" | Countdown to Ecstasy | 5:23 |
| 16. | "My Old School" | Countdown to Ecstasy | 5:45 |
| Total length: | 70:29 | ||
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Origin | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "King of the World" | Countdown to Ecstasy | 5:00 | |
| 2. | "Pearl of the Quarter" | Countdown to Ecstasy | 3:49 | |
| 3. | "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" (single version) | Pretzel Logic (1974) | 4:07 | |
| 4. | "Night by Night" | Pretzel Logic | 3:38 | |
| 5. | "Any Major Dude Will Tell You" | Pretzel Logic | 3:08 | |
| 6. | "Barrytown" | Pretzel Logic | 3:19 | |
| 7. | "East St. Louis Toodle-oo" | Duke Ellington; Bubber Miley | Pretzel Logic | 2:48 |
| 8. | "Parker's Band" | Pretzel Logic | 2:43 | |
| 9. | "Through with Buzz" | Pretzel Logic | 1:32 | |
| 10. | "Pretzel Logic" | Pretzel Logic | 4:31 | |
| 11. | "With a Gun" | Pretzel Logic | 2:17 | |
| 12. | "Charlie Freak" | Pretzel Logic | 2:43 | |
| 13. | "Monkey in Your Soul" | Pretzel Logic | 2:34 | |
| 14. | "Bodhisattva" (live) | B-side of "Hey Nineteen" single (1980) | 7:41 | |
| 15. | "Black Friday" | Katy Lied (1975) | 3:40 | |
| 16. | "Bad Sneakers" | Katy Lied | 3:19 | |
| 17. | "Rose Darling" | Katy Lied | 3:03 | |
| 18. | "Daddy Don't Live in That New York City No More" | Katy Lied | 3:13 | |
| 19. | "Doctor Wu" | Katy Lied | 3:54 | |
| 20. | "Everyone's Gone to the Movies" | Katy Lied | 3:44 | |
| 21. | "Chain Lightning" | Katy Lied | 2:59 | |
| Total length: | 73:42 | |||
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Origin | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Your Gold Teeth II" | Katy Lied | 4:12 | |
| 2. | "Any World (That I'm Welcome To)" | Katy Lied | 3:53 | |
| 3. | "Throw Back the Little Ones" | Katy Lied | 3:13 | |
| 4. | "Kid Charlemagne" | The Royal Scam (1976) | 4:37 | |
| 5. | "The Caves of Altamira" | The Royal Scam | 3:32 | |
| 6. | "Don't Take Me Alive" | The Royal Scam | 4:14 | |
| 7. | "Sign in Stranger" | The Royal Scam | 4:21 | |
| 8. | "The Fez" | Becker; Fagen; Paul Griffin | The Royal Scam | 3:58 |
| 9. | "Green Earrings" | The Royal Scam | 4:05 | |
| 10. | "Haitian Divorce" | The Royal Scam | 5:48 | |
| 11. | "Everything You Did" | The Royal Scam | 3:54 | |
| 12. | "The Royal Scam" | The Royal Scam | 6:31 | |
| 13. | "Here at the Western World" | Greatest Hits (1978) | 4:00 | |
| 14. | "Black Cow" | Aja (1977) | 5:08 | |
| 15. | "Aja" | Aja | 8:00 | |
| 16. | "Peg" | Aja | 3:55 | |
| Total length: | 73:21 | |||
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Origin | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Deacon Blues" | Aja | 7:33 | |
| 2. | "Home at Last" | Aja | 5:32 | |
| 3. | "I Got the News" | Aja | 5:04 | |
| 4. | "Josie" | Aja | 4:31 | |
| 5. | "FM" | Remix, original version from FM: The Original Movie Soundtrack (1978) | 5:05 | |
| 6. | "Babylon Sisters" | Gaucho (1980) | 5:48 | |
| 7. | "Hey Nineteen" | Gaucho | 5:07 | |
| 8. | "Glamour Profession" | Gaucho | 7:28 | |
| 9. | "Gaucho" | Becker; Fagen; Keith Jarrett | Gaucho | 5:30 |
| 10. | "Time Out of Mind" | Gaucho | 4:11 | |
| 11. | "My Rival" | Gaucho | 4:30 | |
| 12. | "Third World Man" | Gaucho | 5:14 | |
| 13. | "Everyone's Gone to the Movies" (demo) | Previously unreleased (1971) | 3:57 | |
| Total length: | 69:30 | |||
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Steely Dan is an American rock band founded in 1971 in New York by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. Initially the band had a stable lineup, but in 1974 Becker and Fagen retired from live performances to become a studio-only band, opting to record with a revolving cast of session musicians. Rolling Stone has called them "the perfect musical antiheroes for the seventies".
Pretzel Logic is the third studio album by American rock band Steely Dan, released by ABC Records on February 20, 1974. It was recorded at the Village Recorder in West Los Angeles, California, with producer Gary Katz. The album was Steely Dan's last to be made and released while the group was still an active touring band, as well as the final album to feature the band's full quintet-lineup of Becker, Fagen, Denny Dias, Jim Hodder, and Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, though it also features significant contributions from many prominent Los Angeles-based studio musicians.
Donald Jay Fagen is an American musician best known as the co-founder, lead singer, co-songwriter, and keyboardist of the band Steely Dan, formed in the early 1970s with musical partner Walter Becker. In addition to his work with Steely Dan, Fagen has released four solo albums, beginning with The Nightfly in 1982, which was nominated for seven Grammys. In 2001, Fagen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Steely Dan. Following Becker's death in 2017, Fagen continued to tour under the Steely Dan name.
Can't Buy a Thrill is the debut studio album by American rock band Steely Dan, released by ABC Records in November 1972. It was written by band members Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, and recorded in August 1972 at the Village Recorder in West Los Angeles, California, with producer Gary Katz. The album is one of Steely Dan's most stylistically eclectic, encompassing the sounds of soft rock, folk rock, jazz-rock and pop, alongside philosophical, elliptical lyrics.
Aja is the sixth studio album by the American jazz rock band Steely Dan, released by ABC Records on September 23, 1977. On the album, band leaders Donald Fagen and Walter Becker pushed Steely Dan further into experimenting with different combinations of session players, enlisting the services of nearly 40 musicians, while pursuing longer, more sophisticated compositions and arrangements.
Gaucho is the seventh studio album by the American rock band Steely Dan, released by MCA Records on November 21, 1980. The album marked a significant stylistic shift for the band, with more focus on rhythm and atmosphere than their earlier work, and fewer harmonically complex chord progressions, but the recording sessions demonstrated the group's typical obsessive nature and perfectionism, as they used at least 42 different musicians, spent over a year in the studio, and far exceeded the original monetary advance given by the record label. At the 24th Annual Grammy Awards, Gaucho won Best Engineered Recording – Non-Classical, and was nominated for Album of the Year and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals.
Everything Must Go is the ninth studio album by American rock group Steely Dan. It was released on June 10, 2003, by Reprise Records, and was the band's second album following their 20-year studio hiatus spanning 1980 through 2000, when they released Two Against Nature. Everything Must Go is the band's most recent studio album and their last with founding member Walter Becker before his death in 2017.
A remaster is a change in the sound or image quality of previously created forms of media, whether audiophonic, cinematic, or videographic. The resulting product is said to be remastered. The terms digital remastering and digitally remastered are also used.
The Nightfly is the debut solo studio album by American singer-songwriter Donald Fagen. Produced by Gary Katz, it was released October 1, 1982, by Warner Bros. Records. Fagen is best known for his work in the group Steely Dan, with whom he enjoyed a successful career since the 1970s. The band separated in 1981, leading Fagen to pursue a solo career. Although The Nightfly includes a number of production staff and musicians who had played on Steely Dan records, it was Fagen's first release without longtime collaborator Walter Becker.
Odds & Sods is an album of studio outtakes by British rock band the Who. It was released by Track Records in the UK and Track/MCA in the US in October 1974. Ten of the recordings on the original eleven-song album were previously unreleased. The album reached No. 10 on the UK charts and No. 15 in the US.
The SPARS code is a three-position alphabetic classification system developed in the early 1980s by the Society of Professional Audio Recording Services (SPARS) for commercial compact disc releases to denote aspects of the sound recording and reproduction process, distinguishing between the use of analog equipment and digital equipment. The code's three positions refer to recording, mixing, and mastering respectively. The first two positions may be coded either "A" for analog or "D" for digital; the third position (mastering) is always "D" on digital CDs. The scheme was not originally intended to be limited to use on digital packaged media: it was also available for use in conjunction with analog releases such as vinyl or cassette, but this was seldom done in practice.
Roger Scott Nichols was an American recording engineer, producer, and inventor.
A Decade of Steely Dan is a compilation album by Steely Dan, released in 1985. It was the band's first compilation specifically for the compact disc market, and was certified a gold record by the RIAA.
Gold is a compilation album by Steely Dan, released in 1982. It mostly comprises hits both post-dating and not included on their 1978 Greatest Hits, essentially acting as "Volume 2"; it also features additional album tracks, offering a broad perspective on the band's career to that point.
The Best of Steely Dan: Then and Now is a compilation album by Steely Dan, released in 1993. The album cover is a photograph of Carhenge in Nebraska.
"Do It Again" is a 1972 song composed and performed by American rock group Steely Dan, who released it as a single from their debut album Can't Buy a Thrill. The single version differed from the album version, shortening the intro and outro and omitting the organ solo.
"Rikki Don't Lose That Number" is a single released in 1974 by rock/jazz rock group Steely Dan and the opening track of their third album Pretzel Logic. It was the most successful single of the group's career, peaking at number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the summer of 1974.
"FM (No Static at All)" is a song by American jazz-rock band Steely Dan, the title theme for the 1978 film FM. It made the US Top 40 that year when released as a single, a success relative to the film. Musically, it is a complex jazz-rock composition driven by its bass, guitar and piano parts, typical of the band's sound from this period; its lyrics look askance at the album-oriented rock format of many FM radio stations at that time, in contrast to the film's celebration of that medium.
"I.G.Y. " is a song written and performed by American songwriter, singer and musician Donald Fagen. It was the first track on his platinum-certified debut solo album The Nightfly, and was released in September 1982 as its first single. It charted within the top 30 on the Billboard Hot 100, Mainstream Rock, R&B Singles and Adult Contemporary charts.
"Aja" is a jazz rock song, with elements of jazz fusion and progressive rock, by the American rock band Steely Dan from the album of the same name, their sixth studio album, released in 1977. Composers Becker and Fagen play guitar and synthesizer, respectively, on the song, with various studio musicians playing the other parts; Fagen sings lead vocals. Production duties were handled by Gary Katz; the album was released through ABC Records. Musically, it is a tonally sophisticated and structurally complex work that was praised on its release as the most ambitious track the duo had ever attempted. The song's lyrics center around the interior monologue of a man who runs to the title character to escape the stresses of his life "up on the hill." Fagen claimed that it was inspired by a relative of someone he knew, who had married a Korean woman named Aja. He has described the song as being about the "tranquility that can come of a quiet relationship with a beautiful woman."
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