From the near-instant success of their 1972 debut Can’t Buy a Thrill to their 1977 masterpiece Aja to their 2000 comeback Two Against Nature, Steely Dan’s discography is loaded with quality albums. None was more pivotal to their ultimate direction than Pretzel Logic. For Can’t Buy a Thrill and the follow-up Countdown to Ecstasy, Steely Dan had a mostly consistent lineup: vocalist/keyboardist Donald Fagen, bassist Walter Becker, guitarists Denny Dias and Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, and drummer Jim Hodder. Becker and Fagen also served as Steely Dan’s songwriters. David Palmer had initially been recruited to be the lead vocalist due to Fagen’s stage fright, but Palmer left the band prior to Countdown to Ecstasy.
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Pretzel Logic
Steely Dan nominally kept that lineup intact for Pretzel Logic, but their 1974 album began the shift from a five-piece band to a band in name only. From Pretzel Logic on forward, Steely Dan was a shifting constellation of studio musicians with Becker and Fagen as the sole core members. For their third album, Hodder was replaced on drums by the legendary Jim Gordon and a 19-year-old Jeff Porcaro—four years before he would form Toto with David Paich. Becker and Fagen brought in several other musicians who would appear on subsequent Steely Dan albums as well, including Paich, Dean Parks, Chuck Rainey, Wilton Felder, Michael Omartian, and Victor Feldman (who also played on Countdown to Ecstasy).
Pretzel Logic is also the album that established Steely Dan as serial hitmakers in the ‘70s and early ‘80s. Can’t Buy a Thrill produced two popular singles in “Do It Again” (No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100) and “Reelin’ in the Years” (No. 11), but Countdown to Ecstasy lacked a Top 40 hit. Pretzel Logic’s leadoff track, “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” went to No. 4 and set the stage for the album’s eventual Platinum certification. No Steely Dan album would fail to go Platinum until their final release Everything Must Go (2003).
Pretzel Logic is also an important album for Steely Dan, because it’s one of their best. Stylistically, it’s their most varied, with soft rock, blues, jazz, funk, and country represented across the album’s 11 tracks. Steely Dan pulls off each of these genres with aplomb. While there are no skippable tracks on Pretzel Logic, if you had to condense the album down to five tracks, these would be the ones to include.
5. “Monkey in Your Soul”
One could make an argument for including the bluesy title track among the top five songs, but “Monkey in Your Soul” is just too deliciously groovy to leave off the list. We can instantly feel Fagen’s exasperation when he opens the song with I got one and you want four / It’s so hard to help you. The soundtrack to Fagen’s kiss-off gives his complaints some swagger. The laid-back keyboard melody and horn lines take some of the edge off his disgust, giving the song a sweet-and-sour feel.
4. “Night by Night”
This is the hardest that Steely Dan rocks on Pretzel Logic, in large part because of Baxter’s blistering guitar work. But Steely Dan shows its finesse on “Night by Night,” pairing Baxter’s riffing with Porcaro’s funky groove. Both sides of “Night by Night”’s sonic landscape bring life to the actual wrong-side-of-town landscape sketched out in the lyrics sung by Fagen. It’s a particularly visual song, and it’s easy to imagine the details of the protagonist’s “ten-cent life.”
3. “Charlie Freak”
Steely Dan’s lyrics are as important to their appeal as their sophisticated compositions and musical virtuosity are, and that’s particularly true for Pretzel Logic’s penultimate track. Becker and Fagen’s lyrics are usually more acerbic than compassionate, but “Charlie Freak” provides one of the toughest emotional gut punches in Steely Dan’s catalog. It’s a tale of a man with no food or home who sells his last possession of any value—a gold ring—to the narrator, and then spends the money on drugs that he fatally overdoses on. The lyrics and Fagen’s vocal delivery are enough to get the heartbreaking story across, but the addition of Christmas bells to the song’s final verse makes it almost too much to bear.
2. “Any Major Dude Will Tell You”
Is Fagen’s character in “Any Major Dude” being compassionate to his friend when he sings When the demon is at your door / In the morning it won’t be there no more? Or is he being flippant with phrases like “super fine,” “my funky one,” and “major dude”? Regardless of the intent of the lyrics, the song is an absolute mellow gem. The bright acoustic guitar and melancholy Wurlitzer piano create a sublime mood. The song also has one of Steely Dan’s best bridges. They may be better known for their quirky compositions, but Becker and Fagen show here that they can write flat-out gorgeous melodies.
1. “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number”
There is nothing close to a correlation between a song being an album’s biggest hit and being its best song. In this case, though, “Rikki” wins both prizes. As is fitting for Steely Dan, their highest-charting song is unconventional for a chart hit. Initially, it sounds like a straightforward piano-driven midtempo number, but then the chorus introduces a Latin beat and some bluesy licks from Baxter. The Doobie-Brother-to-be also delivers one of the best guitar solos ever to grace a Steely Dan song—and that bar is set ridiculously high. “Rikki” is The Dan at their genre-blending best.
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