A Decade of Steely Dan (1985)

As purveyors of songs about seedy New Yorkers and narcissistic, hedonistic Angelenos arranged with an ironically classy jazz-rock fusion  sound, Steely Dan were a band that could only have been possible in the 1970s, yet their sound was made like a custom suit for the biggest recording technology of the 1980s - the compact disc.  The pristine music composed and arranged by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen sounded even more sparkling and clean on CD, and the unsavory lyrics were even more perverse as a result.  So it made perfect sense that Steely Dan were among the first bands  to be repackaged with a greatest-hits compilation exclusively for CD.

A Decade of Steely Dan collects the obvious hit singles and the most essential album tracks that Becker and Fagen put out with the original band and, then, session musicians from the group's formation in 1972 to its dissolution in 1981 (Becker and Fagen would reunite in the nineties).   In typical Dan quirkiness, the tracks are not in chronological order, though the programming opportunities on a CD player allowed listeners to play the tracks in any order they pleased.   It includes the groundbreaking "Do It Again," a song about a roving gambler, and a straight and almost square "Rikki Don't Lose That Number," an uncharacteristically guileless love song, as well as Becker and Fagen's other tales in all of their sardonic glory - "Black Friday," with its story of a stock market crash,  the loss of innocence of "My Old School," the satire of South Asian cults in "Bodhisattva," and the jaded view of a young starlet in "Peg."  And that's just a partial list.  The laid-back sunny LA cynicism  and the dirty sidewalks of Manhattan that colored and influenced seventies popular culture never sounded more groovy. 

The music is immaculately played with stinging riffs and precise brass embellishments - as well as Pete Christie's brilliant saxophone solo in Deacon Blues" and Elliott Randall's freewheeling guitar solo on Reelin' In the Years," just two of the moments where Becker and Fagen let their supporting players shine.  A Decade of Steely Dan also includes "FM," the cosmopolitan rocker that served as the theme song for the movie of same name that celebrated the cool vibe of FM radio at the time while lamenting the increasing commercialization of the medium.  The CD works as perfectly as a time capsule for a decade that began with great tumult and ended with exhaustion and exasperation.  A Decade of Steely Dan, with its polished music and its digitally purified sound, makes that crystal clear.