{"id":920,"date":"2017-06-24T18:55:59","date_gmt":"2017-06-24T18:55:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/?p=920"},"modified":"2018-10-12T16:16:40","modified_gmt":"2018-10-12T16:16:40","slug":"rs-386-steely-dan-pretzel-logic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/?p=920","title":{"rendered":"RS #386: Steely Dan, Pretzel Logic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>#386<\/p>\n<h3>Steely Dan, <em>Pretzel Logic<\/em><\/h3>\n<div id=\"yiv8756997158yui_3_7_2_17_1358531694665_587\">\n<p><strong>Release Date:<\/strong> 1974<br \/>\n<strong>Previously Owned:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes<br \/>\n<strong>First Time Listen:<\/strong> No<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<figure style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/c\/cd\/Pretzel_Logic_album.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/c\/cd\/Pretzel_Logic_album.jpg\">Pretzle&#8217;s for sale<\/a> By Source, <a href=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/c\/cd\/Pretzel_Logic_album.jpg\" title=\"Fair use of copyrighted material in the context of Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)\">Fair use<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:Pretzel_Logic_album.jpg\">Link<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Impressions: <\/strong>Holy crow, it&#8217;s been a while since my last update! Let&#8217;s <em>Pretzel<\/em>&#8230;The Dan seems kind of polarizing, so I&#8217;ll just say up front that I&#8217;m a big fan. I&#8217;ve mostly heard their songs broken up by a mix or as a part of <em>Citizen Steely Dan<\/em> boxed set. So we&#8217;ll see how these songs work as an album here. Funny, &#8220;Rikki Don&#8217;t Lose That Number&#8221; is a good song, but never a favorite of mine even though it quotes Horace Silver&#8217;s &#8220;Song For My Father.&#8221; The album is full of jazz illusions like this and other  The sound is immaculate. &#8220;Night By Night&#8221; sounds like an amazing &#8217;70s tv cop theme song that would probably be about aliens or drugs or something. The Dan rarely did covers but they do a fairly straightforward instrumental cover of Duke Ellington &#8220;East St. Louis Toodle-oo&#8221; which ends up being like a nice intermission piece and a thematic transition into the Charlie Parker tribute &#8220;Parker&#8217;s Band.&#8221; Completely varied styles even a few sweet (for Steely Dan) numbers like &#8220;Any Major Dude.&#8221; I think &#8220;Through With Buzz&#8221; has really grown on me. Underrated short string quartet song about a guy done with drugs, booze, a person named &#8220;buzz&#8221;&#8230;all three?. I enjoy that their lyrics a fairly inscrutable. &#8220;Pretzel Logic&#8221; is about time travel? Supposedly, &#8220;Rikki&#8221; is about a seducing a pregnant woman? Or mailing a joint to yourself? Who knows? &#8220;Barrytown&#8221; is about Bob Dylan? Despite this conceptual density, the songs themselves are musically concise. &#8220;Monkey In Your Soul&#8221; has got a great bouncing beat with that funky marimba. Nobody&#8217;s sampled this song yet, even though it would cost millions.) I always thought these songs were great, but not my personal favorites, but after listening to them in sequence, they all add up and make sense as an album.<br \/>\n<strong>Starred Songs:\u00a0<\/strong>&#8220;Any Major Dude,&#8221; &#8220;Rikki Don&#8217;t Lose That Number,&#8221; and &#8220;Pretzel Logic&#8221;<br \/>\n<strong>Sneaky Track:<\/strong> &#8220;Through With Buzz&#8221;<br \/>\n<strong>Should this album be on the\u00a0list? <\/strong>Yes.<br \/>\n<strong>Will You Listen To This Again: <\/strong>Yes, maybe even today<br \/>\n<strong>Verdict: <\/strong> Lean, mean &#8217;70s perfect jazz-rock gems with concise yet vague songwriting<br \/>\n<strong>Rating:<\/strong>\u00a0 \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>#386 Steely Dan, Pretzel Logic Release Date: 1974 Previously Owned:\u00a0Yes First Time Listen: No Impressions: Holy crow, it&#8217;s been a while since my last update! Let&#8217;s Pretzel&#8230;The Dan seems kind of polarizing, so I&#8217;ll just say up front that I&#8217;m a big fan. I&#8217;ve mostly heard their songs broken up by a mix or as &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/?p=920\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">RS #386: Steely Dan, Pretzel Logic<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[95,27,40,223,230],"class_list":["post-920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rolling-stone-top-500-albums","tag-95","tag-5-stars","tag-previously-owned","tag-rolling-stone-top-500-albums","tag-steely-dan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=920"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":959,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions\/959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}