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The spelling of "Rikki" is a female spelling. Rikki's gender is never identified. "You tell yourself you're not my kind" is the most homo-suggestive line, but a guy could say that to a girl too. If you read Rikki as a girl, the song takes on an underage/jailbait aspect- actually it does even if Rikki is a guy. They obviously wanted it to be ambiguous.

In any case, the song is about a person trying to manipulate another person into doing things that seem really sleazy, and it's creepy as fuck. And millions of people have sung along to it. Par for the Dan course.

I don't actually enjoy listening to their music very much myself, but it doesn't make them any less brilliant.

hey nineteen.

no, really, hey nineteen.

come on.

kerble wrote:The fact that about 50% of the population's skin crawls about the Dan:
NOT CRAP.

kerble and angus jung, excellent thoughts on Steely Dan. I find that among "indie"-identified people, about 97% despise them. Kerble's got it right, it's because of an utterly superficial cultural analysis. Steely Dan was brilliant until Gaucho, and even Gaucho is ok- though it introduces the dull metronomic 2/4 beat that has pervaded post-Aja 'dan. Just because their studio techniques have a lot in common with Toto doesn't make them equivalent.

Every Steely Dan song I've ever heard starts off cool, but I stop caring about it long before they finish the song. I say Crap, with a high WF.

Can't Buy A Thrill Not Crap
Countdown to Ecstasy Not Crap
Pretzel Logic Not Crap
Katy Lied Not Crap
The Royal Scam Not Crap
Aja Not Crap
Gaucho Not Crap
The Nightfly (Fagen Solo) Not Crap WF 2
11 Tracks of Whack (Becker Solo) Crap WF 8
Kamakiriad (Fagen Solo) Not Crap WF 10
Alive In America Not Crap but not necessary
Two Against Nature Crap WF 6
Everything Must Go Haven't heard

This band is incredible....the second Fagen and first Becker solo records, not withstanding. Don't get me wrong, there are good points on both records - maybe combined and trimmed a pretty good record. But there's also some dreck and wank, and dangerously-soft-rock-like moments. On Two Against Nature the arrangements are still quite good, but the sounds are not. Perhaps a tad obsessed-over.

Does anyone have a report on Everything Must Go? Note to self to check it out.

i like at least part of every album thru _gaucho_

so sleazy. very sleazy band. i think this band, they are maybe 10x as subversive as a band like the dwarves.

not crap

Basically, he says that conceptually they're similar to Pavement, but better.

sonically, both bands tended to round off the edges whenever possible. there's nothing truly jagged about pavement after about the first couple singles--even the very distorted moments are fuzzy rather than biting. and there was never, ever anything jagged about steely dan, in sonic terms.

but there the similarities end, i believe. pavement, they would never be so sleazy--sorta pedophilic and half-gay and misanthropic.

tmidgett wrote:so sleazy. very sleazy band. i think this band, they are maybe 10x as subversive as a band like the dwarves.

This, I think, is maybe my favorite musical correlative ever.


Nice. Fcuking nice. Salut Midgetttti!

Don't forget F.M., Mr. Chimp!

And Tim nailed the sleaze factor that's there for better and worse.

I could never get into this band. I know a lot of people who love them, but their music always kind of made me car sick.

Angus Jung wrote:The spelling of "Rikki" is a female spelling. Rikki's gender is never identified. "You tell yourself you're not my kind" is the most homo-suggestive line, but a guy could say that to a girl too. If you read Rikki as a girl, the song takes on an underage/jailbait aspect- actually it does even if Rikki is a guy. They obviously wanted it to be ambiguous.

In any case, the song is about a person trying to manipulate another person into doing things that seem really sleazy, and it's creepy as fuck. And millions of people have sung along to it. Par for the Dan course.

I don't actually enjoy listening to their music very much myself, but it doesn't make them any less brilliant.

I thought Rikki was Rickie Lee Jones. She was romantically linked to either Donald Fagan or Walter Becker - or maybe both. But either way, I agree with you about the meaning of it.

Check out Home At Last from Aja. Very cool song -- it's about an encounter with sirens. Now there's a story that has always been fantastically creepy, yet highly entertaining.