Steely Dan: Countdown To Ecstasy (180g, remaster) [UME]

Why you'll love it

This remastered 180g reissue comes with a printed inner sleeve of lyrics and song notes. It's the record where Donald Fagen took over every lead vocal and the band hit its stride, later certified gold in the US.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Remastered
• Printed inner sleeve with lyrics and song notes
• Pressed in the Czech Republic
• Stereo mix

About the album

Some bands write albums over a year; Walter Becker and Donald Fagen wrote this one between tour dates, sometimes the night before. "Bodhisattva" was finished by Fagen hours before the session, and the eight songs here are every one they completed at the Village Recorder in West Los Angeles.

Gary Katz produced, and the band plays like a jazz combo that happens to own Marshall amps. Jeff Baxter built the Stratocaster for "My Old School" himself, finishing it in a parking lot three hours before recording it. "The Boston Rag" borrows a chord pattern from Bach, Rick Derringer adds slide to "Show Biz Kids," and "King Of The World" grew from a 1962 science fiction film. Donald Fagen sings lead on every track here, and Denny Dias and Baxter trade guitar lines like jazz players swapping choruses, which is precisely the point.

Critics have lined up behind it ever since. Fagen recorded the "Bodhisattva" solo on a temperamental synthesizer one note at a time, then threw the thing down the stairs, and ABC executives framed the wreckage, which is one way to review a piece of equipment.

Also at Kops: more Steely Dan on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On ABC / Geffen / UMe (cat# B0034988-01), a reissue of the 1973 album.