Steely Dan’s début album is probably one of the best début albums of all time, though it hardly reflects their best work.
The songs themselves show the mastery of songwriting basics you’d expect from two guys who tried to work their way into The Brill Building: strong hooks, memorable lines and sexy grooves. Three of the songs have deservedly reached iconic status: “Do It Again,” “Dirty Work,” and “Reelin’ in the Years.” A few of the songs rely too much on formula, and the album in general lacks the intensity and excitement of some of their later works, when Fagen and Becker had greater control. Can’t Buy a Thrill establishes Fagen and Becker as more-than-credible songwriters and successfully mixes elements from jazz, soul and rock in a way that few had done before.
The album opens with one of the three iconic numbers, “Do It Again.” The seductive Latin rhythms hook you from the start, made fresher by the diversity of piano, maracas, guitar fills and a solid bass line. Donald Fagen’s double-tracked vocal commands your attention with its impressive range and soulful, street-wise qualities. The lengthy instrumental passage featuring electric sitar, guitar and plastic organ is an absolute delight, but this song is all about that hip-swaying groove and the memorable lyrics, full of both catchwords and penetrating insight.
Most critics have interpreted the song to be about the addictive behavior of a hopeless loser, but I think that interpretation is an example of the American obsession with the addiction paradigm getting in the way of a more accurate read. No other culture whines about victims as much as the United States and no other culture celebrates self-generated victims with such morbid pity. Wanna win an Oscar? Play a drunk or a drug addict. Wanna become immortal? Die of a drug overdose or drown yourself in booze. Victimized by the seductive evil of food? Tune in The Biggest Loser and empathize with the struggles of the unpleasantly plump and revel in agonizing guilt when the scale fails to move downward. Americans claim to hate those who play the victimization card, but the truth is that Americans are consumed with self-hatred about their own self-generated, neurotic victimization.
“Do It Again” isn’t about addiction—that’s just the convenient tagline Americans apply to a much more difficult problem they do their best to deny. “Do It Again” is about the holy trinity at the core of American culture, the three fabled paths of the pursuit of happiness: violence, sex and gambling. With breathtaking naiveté, Americans believe if they can defeat all their enemies, conquer others through sexual prowess and beat the system via the stock market, lottery or Las Vegas, they will experience happiness. On the surface, Americans view life as a competition, and the problem that needs to be solved is the enemy out there, never the enemy within. The guy in “Do It Again” gets away with murder without suffering a consequence, so he will kill again. He finds his lover cheating on him with his only friend and seeks to recover his collapsing self-esteem through more meaningless sex. In the final verse he buys into the undying American myth that wealth is just around the corner, and though his rational mind knows the house has the ultimate edge, he has to pull the handle and place his bets. “Do It Again” is an indictment of a culture that individually and collectively refuses to engage in self-reflection, and is forever strapped to the “wheel turning ’round and ’round.”
“Dirty Work” has once again entered American consciousness due to the film American Hustler, a horrid and stupid film where nearly everyone except DeNiro was miscast and the idiots who came up with the soundtrack couldn’t get their dates straight. Abscam was late 70’s/early 80’s, so why on earth did we hear ELO’s “10538 Overture” instead of the shitty disco-tinged crap they were making at the time? “Dirty Work” pops up in the film a few years before its time, probably because of the song title’s connection to the film’s theme. Talk about obvious! Back to the song. . . it feels weird to hear someone other than Donald Fagen singing a Steely Dan song, and really, David Palmer’s wimpy vocal completely fails to capture the bitter undertone of the story about a guy being used as a living dildo while the hubby is out-of-town. Alan Hull’s “Breakfast” is a far superior treatment of the topic, but I think Donald Fagen would have delivered a vocal that realized the song’s potential.
“Kings” comes next, one of the best arrangements on an album full of good arrangements. I’m mesmerized by the shifting rhythms and changing melodic flows, but the complex guitar integration, the female background vocals and Elliot Randall’s solo send me into a state approaching ecstasy. I hear songs as well-arranged as this one and think, “This is a fucking début album?” I’ll take their word for it and move on to “Midnite Cruiser,” another song that might have been better with Fagen doing the vocal (drummer Jim Hodder gets the call on this one), but I’m not sure that even Donald could have saved this one—the hook is too contrived and the chorus sounds like it was dropped in by a rescue helicopter. They do much better with “Only a Fool Could Say That,” an upbeat samba-like number with a more integrated hook and a sweet guitar solo from Jeff Baxter. It’s also as good an epitaph for the 1960’s as The National Lampoon’s “Deteriorata,” but expressed in a more down-to-earth fashion:
The man in the street
Draggin’ his feet
Don’t wanna hear the bad news
Imagine your face
There is his place
Standing inside his brown shoes
You do his nine to five
Drag yourself home half alive
And there on the screen
A man with a dreamI heard it was you
Talkin’ ’bout a world
Where all is free
It just couldn’t be
And only a fool would say that
Although Donald Fagen has dismissed “Reelin’ in the Years” as a song knocked off in a few minutes, I rarely believe anything an artist says, so why start now? This song is a complete knockout, from the crammed-syllable phrasing that so accurately mirrors real conversation to the driving beat and to the oh-my-fucking-god lead guitar from the amazing Elliot Randall. When I hear that first lick coming out of nowhere I feel my juices starting to flow, and I can’t get through the intro without putting my fingers on my sweet spot to release a little tension. When Fagen comes in with his “Babe, you’re so full of shit” vocal, the effect is doubly powerful. Oh my god! Intellect and sexuality at the same time! Altrockchick Nirvana! The harmonies on the chorus are as good as it gets, and when we get to the real solo, I’m ready for some action. With Walter Becker supplying exceptionally tight bass, Elliot goes to town and yes! Drive it home, baby! Once I calm down and go back through the lyrics, I find many of my favorite bits of Steely Dan wisdom—the wisdom of those who hear the bullshit that people feel they have to present and shake their heads in wonder:
You been tellin’ me you’re a genius
Since you were seventeen
In all the time I’ve known you
I still don’t know what you mean
The weekend at the college
Didn’t turn out like you planned
The things that pass for knowledge
I can’t understand
I don’t know how you can follow a song like that, but that’s why I don’t make records and guys like Donald Fagen and Walter Becker do! Once I’ve freshened up like we ladies have to do from time to time, “Fire in the Hole” comes along with an opening piano passage that is as just as memorable as Elliot Randall’s work on the fretboard. This soulful, slightly dark and reflective song is a rich combination of unexpected chord shifts, pedal steel guitar, subtle changes in dynamics, and one of Fagen’s best vocals on the album. But that piano! Fagen cooks up a melange of amazing runs, clever blues vamps and sweet melodic restraint that captures everything I love about the piano’s versatility. The lyrics express the classic conflict between the artist and the real world, a battle usually won by the authorities, leaving the passion for life smoldering with no outlet:
I decline
To walk the line
They tell me that I’m lazy
Worldly wise
I realize
That everybody’s crazy
A woman’s voice reminds me
To serve and not to speak
Am I myself or just another freak
Don’t you know
There’s fire in the hole
And nothing left to burn
I’d like to run out now
There’s nowhere left to turn
“Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me)” leaves me flat, in part due to the vocals, but in greater part because the song doesn’t have the strong flow of the others. The same is true of “Change of the Guard,” a formulaic number without the power to overcome the formula. I find the album closer “Turn That Heartbeat Over Again” somewhat interesting for its diversity and shifting moods, but the diverse parts are too choppy and never form a satisfying whole.
No one should expect a début album to be perfect and Can’t Buy a Thrill has its imperfections. What you’re really looking for in a début album is freshness, potential, something different and exciting. Steely Dan delivered all of that and more in Can’t Buy a Thrill, and if I had been alive back in the dark days of 1972, I would have waited with great anticipation for whatever Fagen and Becker came up with next.