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grigorss - 2008-11-20 21:47:12
Hey -- wait a minute!

This is the blog I ordinarily tune into to not hear about crappy music...
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Sharon - 2008-11-21 00:27:54
I have really always hated Steely Dan. When I was in high school in the mid-seventies, when pop culture was necessarily more homogenous, Steely Dan was ubiquitous. But I have to say, strangely it brings back teenhood more vividly than my own preferences in music at that time, just because it was in the ether out of my control..."some people call me Maurice?...get my lovin' on the run..." It sounded goofy even back then.
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grigorss - 2008-11-21 04:07:12
P.S. -- I was mainly talking about Guns-N-Roses

-- mainly...
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2fs - 2008-11-21 04:40:00
Could be some people hate Steely Dan because when they think they're thinking of Steely Dan they're actually thinking of someone else: the lines Sharon quotes are from "The Joker" by the Steve Miller Band.

Nothing to do with Steely Dan, except residing in the same 1970s...
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MacGregor - 2008-11-21 15:15:23
There were a whole host of pop bands in the 70s that I just couldn't "feel." Steely Dan was one of them. Something about that easy going west coast thing. I also never felt the Steve Miller Band, Supertramp, Toto, and most of Fleetwood Mac. Most musicians I know however love Steely Dan, despite where their other preferences may lie. Maybe it has something to do with the way people listen to music. They were so totally part of the soundtrack of the 70s, as Sharon sort of said. They still trigger memories, if not nostalgia.
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grigorss - 2008-11-21 15:37:02
For me (exiled to Florida at the time), from the late 70's through much of the 80's, all mainstream, A.O.R., rock sounded like it was made by a single band, the name of which was Journey-O.-Styx-Wagon -- I was not a fan...
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Steve - 2008-11-21 15:37:12
Something about that easy going west coast thing. I also never felt the Steve Miller Band, Supertramp, Toto, and most of Fleetwood Mac. None of whom were "West Coast" bands, except the SMB. Perhaps Steve Miller is everyone's sole source of hatred of anything from the 1970s?
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Paula - 2008-11-21 15:57:45
MacG: I understand that the bands you mention all fall under the general umbrella of 70s classic rock, but each one you mention has a very different sound. Steve Miller, Fleetwood Mac, Supertramp, all very different styles, and in the case of the two former acts, I love 'em.

Toto not so much--but they're more about the 80s to me.

Notice how I am avoiding the discussion of Steely Dan. I exhausted my Steely Dan opinions at work and am remaining neutral here.
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MacGregor - 2008-11-21 16:21:45
Never said they were West Coast bands, but they all share a sort of breezy, poppy 70s West Coast aesthetic... despite that they really don't sound alike. I'm fairly neutral about them and don't hate anybody for the music they play. I just could never relate.
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Sharon - 2008-11-21 18:17:19
Oh, 2fs, my pedestrian lack of banditude bona fides sticks out like a sore thumb on this blog. Thanks for the gentle correction.
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MacGregor - 2008-11-21 19:51:42
Sharon--Bona Fides or no... I think you're on the money anyway. What really is the difference? Why is one "cool" and the other "other?" It's all the same to me.
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MacGregor - 2008-11-21 21:21:33
I'm going to come out and say it here--my experience with Steely Dan and their fans--is that soooo many of the people that loved them (that I encountered) were the most rabid music snobs. God forbid you say anything against them in front of these people! It was as if you had to be privy to some inside knowledge to appreciate them... and it would always evoke a condescending smirk if you said you didn't like them. And I can't count the number of times their "fans" would allude to the WS Burroughs reference about the name... and smirk more, as if the literary reference lent credibility to the music. Frankly, I'd rather be a member of the KISS Army.
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Dan - 2008-11-22 18:18:13
I know this discussion is over, but I still think it needs one Steely Dan fan to round it out. I love the first five albums.
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Paula - 2008-11-22 18:25:22
No discussion is ever over...Except maybe the transit strike one from 3 years ago...
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