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DARK SECRETS: Donald fagen | Rare Historical Photos

Steely Dan’s The Royal Scam turns 50 this month – and it's a brilliant test of your hi-fi’s chops

Aja is considered the band’s sonic pinnacle, but its predecessor gives your system just as much of a challenge

What Hi-Fi?

‘We got a drive-by egging in Baltimore’: Super Furry Animals on making The Man Don’t Give a Fuck

‘The man is the establishment, I suppose, the military industrial complex. A few year later, when we played it live, we added a loop of Bill Hicks saying: “All governments are liars and murderers”’

The Guardian - UK

“He would often arrive at sessions with two banners, which he placed either side of his kit while recording, reading ‘You done hired the hit-maker’”: From the Purdie shuffle to its extended jazz chords - analysing Steely Dan's Babylon Sisters

A track that took 274 attempts to mix must’ve been worth it in the end, right?

MusicRadar

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"I don't like the jock atmosphere of the travelling rock'n'roll band. It's corny, it's boring and it's silly." The story of the rock'n'roll band who aren't really a band and don't like rock'n'roll but have sold 50 million records to people who do

Steely Dan: An enigma in search of perfection

Louder

“He had this toy, but one day he came to work and told us that the toy had become a man”: How an advanced drum machine saved a difficult Steely Dan album

The innovative machine also received its own platinum record for its painstaking drum replacement

MusicRadar

“You have to know Donald’s sense of humour. It was a total set-up”: Did Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen really tell the people behind the Yacht Rock movie to “F*** off”?

Michael McDonald thinks Donald Fagen doesn’t hate ‘yacht rock’ as much as he pretends

Louder

"Steely Dan had the capacity to be both inscrutable and popular, an enviable place to be": Steely Dan's tunes are rich and assured on the nonchalant Katy Lied

The Dan has a sonic wingding in 1975

Louder

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Yacht rock gets celebrated — smoothly, of course — in new documentary

The stress of Thanksgiving is over

The Independent UK

What is the Steely Dan “Mu chord”? Breaking down the left-field chord voicings that will open up your harmonic world

This deep dive into the Steely Dan chordal approach is a masterclass in Donald Fagen and Walter Becker’s supreme harmonic awareness

Guitar World

FiiO SP3 BT review

A marvellous pair of speakers with a weighty feel and smooth, rich audio.

PC Gamer

“They’re probably some of the first guitar solos I ever learned”: Trey Anastasio tackles Steely Dan classics in searing Songwriters Hall of Fame performance

The Phish guitarist honored Steely Dan and their session guitarists’ work with an extended version of the Reelin’ in the Years solo

Guitar World

“When someone wants to rehearse before the session, that’s the kiss of death”: Watch Lee Sklar’s YouTube playthrough of Steve Lukather’s Stab in the Back

Bass legend Lee Sklar used his “Frankenstein 4-string” on Lukather’s 2008 nod to Donald Fagen

Guitar World

“He likes first takes is what I learned from Stevie Wonder”: Watch session legend Dean Parks talk Innervisions, Steely Dan and Larry Carlton’s “magic” ES-335

The definition of guitar greatness is tracking live with Stevie Wonder and being asked mid-take to play a guitar solo on a fat-necked acoustic

MusicRadar

5 songs you need to hear by Steely Dan: "Like a lot of kids in the ’50s, we were looking for some kind of alternative culture, an escape from where we found ourselves"

Across nine studio albums, jazz-loving perfectionists Walter Becker and Donald Fagen created a stunning body of work. Here are five of their finest moments

MusicRadar

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Louder

More electrifying footage from The Midnight Special's Steely Dan treasure trove has surfaced

You want Reelin' In The Years, with some awesome guitar from Skunk Baxter and the world's liveliest backing singers? You got it

Louder

"The song virtually played itself" - the Steely Dan classic starring Jimmy Page’s favourite guitar solo

From 1972’s debut Steely Dan album Can’t Buy A Thrill, Reelin’ In The Years accidentally benefitted from an engineer who neglected to run the tape

The Guardian - AU

‘The most important cassette on the planet’: how Steely Dan fans uncovered their holy grail

The Second Arrangement was accidentally wiped in the studio in 1979. Now a version found by the recording engineer’s family has the community ‘freaking out’

The Guardian - US

Queer sounds: our writers on their favourite LGBTQ+ songs

For Pride month, Guardian writers have singled out their favourite LGBTQ+ songs, from Pet Shop Boys to Frank Ocean

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news in one place.

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Louder

Steely Dan: more 24-carat 70s rock gold from the Midnight Specia

Watch Steely Dan play the classics Reelin' In The Years and Do It Again (with Dave Palmer on lead vocals) in 1973

Louder

Countdown To Ecstasy: all hail Steely Dan's idiosyncratic visions of jazz-charged contemporary rock

Steely Dan's initially overlooked sleeper Countdown To Ecstasy is back on wax

The Guardian - UK

Steely Dan’s 20 greatest songs – ranked!

With November marking 50 years since their debut album, we pick the best of the band’s idiosyncratic output, with tales of capitalism, drug dealers and mid-life crises

Los Angeles Times

Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen apologizes to Aimee Mann after she accuses band of sexism

Turns out Aimee Mann didn’t look like a perfect fit to open for Steely Dan on the band’s twice-postponed summer tour — but not for the reason she initially suspected.

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