Citizen Steely Dan: 1972-1980 [Box set]

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
As should be expected, Steely Dan's four-disc box set isn't like all the other rectangular pop-music retrospectives/tombstones. Not for Messrs. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen the typically bloated, ego-jacking crate padded out with childhood recordings, suspect cassette demos, and broken-down session takes, annotated by candid snapshots purloined from some distant relative. Nope, this is simply Dan Mach 1's complete oeuvre, from the craft-conscious pop of Can't Buy a Thrill to the jazzy torpor of Gaucho, laid out chronologically and neatly compressed into four discs, with not even a handful of "bonus" cuts (a live recording of "Bodhisattva," a '71 demo of "Everyone's Gone to the Movies" with Flo and Eddie on the side, "Here at the Western World," a Royal Scam outtake, and their obligatory soundtrack cameo, "FM") to color outside the lines. The liner notes are suitably smart, even if they occasionally strain trying to stay astride of B&F's patent sardonicism. For the aspiring Steely Dan completist, a fine place to start. --Jerry McCulley

Tracks:

Do It Again
Dirty Work
Kings
Midnite Cruiser
Only A Fool Would Say That
Reelin' In The Years
Fire In The Hole
Brooklyn (Owes The Charmer Under Me)
Change of the Guard
Turn That Heartbeat Over Again
Bodhisattva
Razor Boy
The Boston Rag
Your Gold Teeth
Show Biz Kids
My Old School

Tracks:

King Of The World
Pearl Of The Quarter
Rikki Don't Lose That Number
Night By Night
Any Major Dude Will Tell You
Barrytown
East St. Louis Toodle-Do
Parker's Band
Through With Buzz
Pretzel Logic
With A Gun
Charlie Freak
Monkey In Your Soul
Bodhisattva (Live)
Black Friday
Bad Sneakers
Rose Darling
Daddy Don't Live In That New York City No More
Doctor Wu
Everyone's GoneTo The Movies
Chain Lightning

Tracks:

Your Gold Teeth II
Any World (That I'm Welcome To)
Throw Back The Little Ones
Kid Charlemagne
The Caves Of Altamira
Don't Take Me Alive
Sign In Stranger
The Fez
Green Earrings
Haitian Divorce
Everything You Did
The Royal Scam
Here At The Western World
Black Cow
Aja
Peg

Tracks:

Deacon Blues
Home At Last
I Got The News
Josie
FM
Babylon Sisters
Hey Nineteen
Glamour Profession
Gaucho
Time Out Of Mind
My Rival
Third World Man
Everyone's Gone To The Movies (Demo)

Amazon.com

As should be expected, Steely Dan's four-disc box set isn't like all the other rectangular pop-music retrospectives/tombstones. Not for Messrs. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen the typically bloated, ego-jacking crate padded out with childhood recordings, suspect cassette demos, and broken-down session takes, annotated by candid snapshots purloined from some distant relative. Nope, this is simply Dan Mach 1's complete oeuvre, from the craft-conscious pop of Can't Buy a Thrill to the jazzy torpor of Gaucho, laid out chronologically and neatly compressed into four discs, with not even a handful of "bonus" cuts (a live recording of "Bodhisattva," a '71 demo of "Everyone's Gone to the Movies" with Flo and Eddie on the side, "Here at the Western World," a Royal Scam outtake, and their obligatory soundtrack cameo, "FM") to color outside the lines. The liner notes are suitably smart, even if they occasionally strain trying to stay astride of B&F's patent sardonicism. For the aspiring Steely Dan completist, a fine place to start. --Jerry McCulley

Customer Reviews:

Citizen Steely Dan: 1972-1980.......2007-05-09

Without doubt the definitive Steely Dan compilation of all time. Their new music notwithstanding, the depth of music included in this boxed set will transport you back to a nostalgic time when things seemd a bit more well defined. Great songs, great players, a great aquistion for all Steely Dan afficiandos!

Great for the novice Dan fan.......2007-01-22

I bought a cassette (!) version of this box set back in 1993 when I was a sophomore in college. It was my introduction to Steely Dan (I was too young to remember them when they were originally recording). And I have to say, this may have been one of the single most important purchases of my life. It forever changed the way I listen to music. More than just turning me into a huge Dan fan, Becker and Fagen's music also paved my entry way into the world of jazz, too. I absolutely love their music.

I've since replaced this box set with the remastered versions of the original albums. But for the novice Dan fan who is looking to learn more, this is a great place to begin. As other reviewers have noted, it's unfortunate that the producers of this set had to rearrange the original album order of some of the songs in order to get everything onto four CDs, but that's a minor quibble. I also thought the enclosed booklet was pretty terrific, too. As I said, when I bought this I knew next to nothing about Steely Dan and with nowhere else to turn for information about the band (remember, I bought this in 1993--before the Web), the book served as a good primer for getting me up to speed on who they were and how they came to be.

Great music. Good value for the price.

5-Stars? Of course!.......2006-09-18

Five stars is an easy choice here; only in the 1970s could such a group have actually snuck the kinds of things into the charts that they managed to, and somehow prosper and influence others.

I won't rehash the well-explained contents of this box set; instead I'll throw out a few tangential observations. It may not have been quite as obvious at the time, but Steely Dan were one of very, very few successful rock bands to exist apart from really any prevailing movements in the history of rock. One could draw some variably vague connections to jazz, soul, pop, hippie-era rock, California 70s singer-songwriters, or even the kind of ironies that would later fluorish in the best of the post-punk generation (Elvis Costello, XTC, Talking Heads and Pavement were all very much spiritual descendants of Steely Dan, in many ways), but Steely Dan weren't exactly any of those things. But they scrupulously maintained a rather erudite ability to draw selectively from most or all of those things. Music geeks (of the best sort)...that's the expression I'm hunting for.

Becker and Fagen also weren't afraid to really get close to the edge with their sense of irony, or satire: there are any number of songs ("Kid Charlemagne" and "Everything You Did" both spring quickly to mind) aimed at a sort of character who might well be listening to a well-worn copy of 'Royal Scam' whilst the deal goes down, and they also didn't exclude themselves from the critiques, the debaucheries, or the damnations. To be able to do this and actually get away with it is a real indication of brilliance, either as songwriters, or perhaps as social commentators.

In any case, this is great and adventurous music through and through - the textured spaciousness of "Your Gold Teeth I," the cacophonous jazz riffs of "Parker's Band," the keyboard pyrotechnics of "Your Gold Teeth II" (apparently, 2 incomplete snipets of songs rearranged into one complete one), or "Deacon Blues" - a perfect creation, blending a Sinatra-worthy melody with production touches that would rival Pink Floyd (or Radiohead).

Socio-critical sonic architecture at its' finest.

-David Alston

Steely Dan's decade(1970-80)........2006-08-04

This longbox contains their 1st 7 albums & you won't find rarities or early live stuff(see the Skynyrd's box for instance).
However,it remains an exceptional document of the band's musical intelligence.
With the possible exception of Lou Reed,rarely such songwriting ability has been so perfect,some of the songs the duo penned could be printed as novels,it's a brilliant job indeed...
Add the superior musicianship to those songwriting skills & you get STEELY DAN,the most subtle band the USA produced.

All the stuff here deserves a good 5 stars,i gave only 4 because some unedited or unofficial live stuff would have been greatly appreciated!

an incredible collection.......2006-06-07

I have appreciated the music of Steely Dan for many years but unfortunately never owned any of their music. I received Citizen last March as a gift.I was blown away by this material. It is incredible. The selections cross many musical genres and every one is represented first class. Anyone who appreciates quality music needs to have this 4 CD set in their collection. There will be no regrets...............

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