When Walter Becker explained how Steely Dan remain timeless: “The least dated”
Few find tremendous success by striking out from the beaten path and creating a sonic temple in their image. However, one band that typifies this gilded form of success is Steely Dan. With their sound, they have traversed eras, finding fans in everyone from aged hippies to Mac Demarco and even the TikTok generation.
Ironically, although they might have looked like hippies, they were not philosophically. As soon as they met at Bard College, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen knew that they didn’t want to fall into a bottomless psychedelic pit like everyone else at the time had seemingly done. Influenced by jazz and the tradition-defying work of Frank Zappa and The Fugs, the duo immediately set about ironing out their sound, which fused glistening technical mastery with some of music’s most acerbic black comedy.
Steely Dan’s oeuvre is comprised primarily of highlights, with the group embarking on one of the most compelling creative arcs of their generation and that of music in general. Their lauded 1972 debut Can’t Buy a Thrill captured the stoned, heady essence of the Los Angeles in which it was recorded without delving into the psychedelic or prog zeitgeist. This early triumph denoted the group as true innovators.
Alas, this was only the beginning, and with Becker and Fagen refusing to rest on their laurels and push back against the zeitgeist – albeit with a notable cast of supporting characters in tow – the group established a back catalogue that comprises records such as Countdown to Ecstasy, one of the decade’s definitive creative peaks in Aja, and Gaucho.
In many ways, the pair were one of the first genuinely postmodern acts in the sense that they blurred lines and tied together distinct sounds far before it was praised to do so. Even more paradoxically, given their professed disdain for the movement, this was a profoundly countercultural angle, which has been a part of their music remaining unfaltering amid the winds of time and the shifting of the zeitgeist.
The pair of proto-hipsters’ ability to dodge the passing of time with their art is undoubtedly one of their foremost achievements, alongside their many moments of unfettered musical genius. Accordingly, fans have long been searching for the secret to such success.
Despite the complexity of their music and shared nature as demanding taskmasters, Becker and Fagen made it all look relatively easy. Cynics might point to their continued use of others’ talent as one element that fed into this reality, but objectively, being able to bring such a towering and vivid creative vision to life is something musicians seldom achieve, let alone one that institutes a legacy.
When CNN asked why their music has remained timeless in 2000, Steely Dan provided a typically unusual answer, citing Albert Einstein, of all people.
It was Becker who took the stand, explaining: “To the extent that that’s true, I think it would be because of the fact that they did not depend or incorporate ’70s stylistic devices and elements to any noticeable extent; they were sort of as free of that as possible. It’s like, in a way, if you look at old pictures of people from 20 or 30 years ago, the people that had the least stylistic sense of themselves at that time look the least dated.”
“That’s why Einstein always looks good,” Fagen wryly added. “He just didn’t care, you know.” There is evidently a profound prescience to this with the band now bigger than ever. This fact evidently wasn’t a fluke.