Steely Dan - Can't Buy A Thrill

8.5 - USA - 1972

A most assured debut, as one would expect from the none-more-consummately-professional Dan. All the Steely trademarks are already in place: the ever-so-slightly too clever songwriting, the idiosyncratically delivered wry vocals, the top notch musicianship, the nicely polished production. "Do It Again" and "Reeling In The Years" speak for themselves; they fully deserve their perennial heavy radio play. But it's the deep cuts that make the record, especially the allegedly-not-a-political-allegory of "Kings", which features a top notch guitar solo from jazz ringer Elliot Randall (who also threw down the stream of licks on "Reeling In The Years").

Fagen was still a little unsure of his vocals at this point, so blue-eyed soul singer David Palmer was brought in for a few tracks (and the drummer was recruited for "Midnight Cruiser", a move which usually connotes Ringo also-ran tokenism, but not so here). Palmer's voice works on "Dirty Work" in all its AM Gold glory, but the album version of "Brooklyn (Owes The Charmer Under Me)" suffers in comparison the to the rougher demo version sung by Fagen. That version -- complete with extra verse -- beautifully evokes the feeling of driving through a city at night, a feeling which is lost in the slightly sped up, much more polished version offered here.

The 1998 reissue features some wonderful liner notes written by Fagen and Becker themselves. A learned pair, they manage to cite "Ted" Adorno. Best quote: "Jeff Baxter had a theory that one of the secretaries at the ABC offices had several sets of interchangeable breasts which she would alternate wearing from day to day. This turned out to be incorrect."