{"id":779644,"date":"2026-09-23T05:20:24","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T05:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/779644\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T05:20:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T05:20:24","slug":"how-steely-dans-best-album-also-became-their-biggest-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/779644\/","title":{"rendered":"How Steely Dan’s best album also became their biggest album"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Steely<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ Spotify<\/p>\n

Tue 22 September 2026 22:00, UK <\/p>\n

While it\u2019s far from a case of their being formulaic in their approach, it always appeared as though there was an exact science behind how Steely Dan<\/a> conjured up their records.<\/p>\n

From their debut album, Can\u2019t Buy a Thrill, all the way through to the final album in their original run, Gaucho, a certain perfectionism coursed through the duo of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker that suggested that there had to be something they were doing every time that caused all of their albums to have this pristine feel to them. No blips, no hiccups, just a true affinity for the music that was being created, and an endless source of artistic inspiration being applied.<\/p>\n

That said, while all of the band\u2019s records were remarkable achievements, the one that stands out the most from their catalogue is their sixth LP, 1977\u2019s Aja, which was ranked by Far Out as being the greatest record<\/a> in the band\u2019s discography. A marginal cut above all of the others, what Aja represents is Steely Dan having gone the extra mile to ensure that perfection could be delivered, and they would eventually reap the rewards of having done so. <\/p>\n

However, this didn\u2019t come without the band having to make a handful of sacrifices. On their five previous albums, Fagen and Becker had been insistent on the idea of managing the band themselves, ensuring that they didn\u2019t have to relinquish any of the creative control or suddenly have to subject themselves to increased levels of publicity. Their producer, Gary Katz, though, had other ideas about this attitude and begged the duo to reconsider their stance.<\/p>\n

Going against their will, Katz arranged for them to meet with Irving Azoff, a man with plenty of experience in the music industry and several important connections. The band eventually relented, agreed to bring Azoff on board to handle their business, and as a result, ended up demolishing all of their previous sales records.<\/p>\n

Aja sold faster than any previous Steely Dan release, peaked on the Billboard album chart at number three, and got to number five in the UK, making it the highest-charting album of the band\u2019s career. Azoff\u2019s links to record stores helped this significantly, and the fact that the album sold over a million copies as a result of his marketing plans and discounted prices, earning the band platinum status from the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), was certainly nothing to be sniffed at.<\/p>\n

However, it wasn\u2019t just the fact that Steely Dan had hired a manager that made Aja their most popular and celebrated album. It was also a result of them choosing to become even stricter on quality control. Around the time of their fourth album, Katy Lied, the band had abandoned the idea of employing a consistent studio band, and instead became reliant on session players.<\/p>\n

Further reading: From The Vault<\/p>\n

They weren\u2019t just bringing in any old musicians to help their vision come to life, though; they were doing the utmost to ensure that they only got the cream of the crop. Fagen and Becker ushered in players just to perform specific parts of songs, and wouldn\u2019t utilise them if they delivered anything short of perfection. <\/p>\n

The lead guitar on \u2018Peg\u2019 required a dozen different players<\/a> to get it to match Fagen\u2019s exacting standards, while they were also able to acquire the services of funk drummer Bernard Purdie and jazz legend Wayne Shorter on saxophone. Perfection wasn\u2019t just an option on Aja; it was a necessity.<\/p>\n

These minor tweaks resulted in one of the most flawless albums of the 1970s, and while the alterations may only seem minor, these changes ended up being exactly what Steely Dan needed to propel them to the highest level of fame in their career, and deservedly so. Aja won a Grammy Award for \u2018Best Engineered Recording \u2013 Non-Classical\u2019 at the 20th Annual Grammy Awards in 1978.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ Spotify Tue 22 September 2026 22:00, UK While it\u2019s far from a case of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":779645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[42201,154668,98591,96,214079,128,24070,56,54,55,82188],"class_list":["post-779644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-1970s","tag-154668","tag-donald-fagen","tag-entertainment","tag-jazz-rock","tag-music","tag-steely-dan","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-walter-becker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}