8) Steely Dan - Aja


Steam Powered Dildo invented Yacht Rock? The Motels was "on the nose?" Seriously, Sandra, you're gonna give me a heart attack trying cram all of this into one bottle. Okay, Steely Dan made a because Japan album. Sandra's making that 'splaining eyebrow, so i better make like Lucy. I just mean that Japan takes it's corporate capitalism very serious. The best, the newest, the marketable. Your value as a person is mostly interchangeable with your value to your company. Obviously, i have some deeply ingrained prejudices against that, so i set them aside for this album, which would otherwise be considered overproduced by Swiss watchmaker standards. Enough, get on with it. 

Here's one of the 8 seminal Yacht Rock albums, one of the top test records for audio equipment due to it's immaculate production, it's Aja. No, you're pronouncing it wrong, it's pronounced "Asia." Jeez, even the title is obtuse. 

Here's the thing about Steely Dan, they are hard core ironic anti-heros, their characters rival Jethro Tull for unsavory, their songs are always about booze, porn, crime, manipulation; the surface is all glitz and shimmer, but the underbelly is seedy as all get out. I think we all recognize those characteristics in Mz. D, don't we? Not sure exactly which one she was is real life, but it's the lifestyle she's lamming, removing the source of the problem. 

Guilty as charged on that one [wink]. 

Shrapnel in your eye? Afraid you went overboard? My real question is how does this fit with the new sincerity of west coast beach bathers? They were perfectly happy to not have a manager and not sell millions of records. Oh, now that i say it like that, i get it. Ok, i'm good now. It is a pretty spectacular album. My third eye is blind this time, how's the last album of Sandra's Sojourn going to be?

Part 9

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 4 Seasons - The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette

Image
This might be my longest  album review ever. But i swear a couple times, so it's worth the read ;) How could i possibly mention Jefferson Airplane, The 4 Seasons, and Frank Zappa in the same context? Zappa said "this is rediculous" and a few years later The 4 Seasons said "you know what, Frank is right. This IS ridiculous." To which Jefferson Airplane said, "Oh. Ok. Got it." The real question is: which one is the most transgressive? Zappa said stop fighting, you look like idiots. Jefferson Airplane said i guess if love and community is a bad thing, then sure we're criminals and we'd be happy to move out into the fields and live peaceful lives without your garbage, let us go already. The 4 Seasons said hold my champagne for a moment. In 1969, The 4 Seasons released the single most ironic, acidic, extravagant, and downright befuddling album ever created, The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette. Zappa was accused of writing "shitty doo-w
Read more

Welcome to my blog, and my record collection.

This is a blog about my love of listening to albums. It started off as a nightly perusal of my dad's record collection (which sadly became mine) on my personal facebook page. Over the last two months it has become quite an enjoyable process of simply ranting about what i think is a real art form, the album. It needs a more permanent home. Some of my reviews are positive, some negative. They might not be what you expect from album reviews, but i hope you at least find them entertaining. For the most part i do very little research, and they tend to be train of thought reactions rather than calculated essays. If nothing else, know that i'm really listening to them and whether they are amazing or abysmal i want you to go listen to them too.  I'll start migrating the 60+ i've written so far over here in the next few days, and hopefully get to the point where i just start writing them here. I'd probably even take suggestions if you're just dying to know my tho
Read more

Pat Benatar - Seven The Hard Way

Image
I don't know about you, but i love Pat Benatar. Yes, that's also her debut album with the single most underrated song in the universe (My Clone Sleeps Alone) in the background, but that's just a generic non-self-titled debut album. We're jumping ahead to her 6th album, Seven The Hard Way, because that, ladies and gentle germs, is how you kalaidescope a concept. Not one, not two, not three, but 4 protien-packed layers to this metaphor. You don't really need to know the overly complicated rules of Craps to know that A) it's gambling, B) "the hard way" refers to rolling doubles, so good luck rolling two 3.5s, and C) you're going to lose, one way or another. It's a joke, but more importantly, it's Pat Benatar and the roll out is Sex As A Weapon, so the innuendo is not intended to be subtle. Wait wait wait, that's only 3, Bottle, where's 4? You're right, last but not least, side B opens with Seven Rooms of Gloom, a Holland-Dozier-Hol
Read more