STEELY DAN — Can't Buy a Thrill (review)

STEELY DAN — Can't Buy a Thrill album cover Album · 1972 · RnB Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
FunkFreak75
What a debut! I will NEVER forget the first time I heard "Do It Again" on the radio in Detroit--I thought I was hearing the latest Santana single, but, no! Some new kid on the block named "dan" was announcing his arrival--and what an arrival! This album burned on our record player for weeks without break. Piano, quirky cerebral lyrics, stellar lead guitar play (by sessions musician, Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, who later go on to greater fame as a member of The Doobie Brothers before returning to sessions work in the 1980s), and introducing the eccentric vocal talents of principle songwriter and ultra-shy Donald Fagen alternating with ultra-smooth voice of David Palmer.

Great, iconic songs: "Do It Again" (10/10), "Reelin' in the Years" (9/10); "Dirty Work" (8.75/10); "Brooklyn (owes the Charmer in Me)" (8.75/10); "Turn That Heartbeat Over Again" (8.75/10); "Kings" (8.5/10), and; the "Blue Collar"-like "Only a Fool Would Say That" (8.5/10).

Not sure how proggy or even jazz-fusiony this album is but I am certainly happy to have an excuse to write and publish a review of one of my childhood's favorites.

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