Steely Dan Fan Starts Steely Dan Newsletter

I got the news. And I will email you that news.

My youngest son has a burgeoning music obsession that makes dad proud.

There’s nothing like regaling a youngster about the great artists of my youth… demanding he make time to listen to all the amazing music that I deem awesome and must be heard, loved and appreciated beyond normal behavior.

I recommend him tunes old and new. He sends me a few songs from new artists, which I never get and just click back to Roxy Music or Tom Waits or Style Council and figure I’m much too old to really connect with the Cool New Thing.

But we love to talk music.

My son has a habit of asking me where this or that artist ranks in my all-time top 10, or top 50.

I tell him it can change week to week. Lots of bands I listened to as a kid I don’t seek out as much now.

Then again, there are some artists I listened to then, now and forever.

So while The Rolling Stones, The Police, Elvis Costello, The Doors, Journey, Smokey Robinson, James Brown, The Beatles, Elvis, Sinatra, Paul Weller, Phil Collins, Bob Dylan, The Who, The Band, Neko Case, and on and on and on …. might battle for position up and down my Top 20, one band has been firmly at the top for as long as I can remember — and that’s Steely Dan.

I am not an expert on Steely Dan. I wouldn’t endeavour to write long essays about the musical and lyrical brilliance of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, the studio perfectionism, or the complexity of Steely Dan's iconic body of work.

I leave the commentary on the beautiful minutiae of Steely Dan to the connoisseurs.

Sure, I could spend a few paragraphs on why I love this song, or that album. Or why SD is so cool and that everyone should listen.

But the world really doesn’t need that from me.

I love Steely Dan. I love newsletters. I have been curating, editing and publishing newsletters for 15 years.

These three facts equals yet another newsletter project for me, because I have some problems, that’s for sure.

There’s something about the search for great content I cannot get enough of. And there is a wealth of interesting and exciting Steely Dan content - old and new - crisscrossing the internet.

Of course there’s always going to be sensational work from Expanding Dan here on Substack, or top-quality content over at X/Twitter from (among others) Good Steely Dan Takes, Dandom.com, Bodacious Callboys, cimcie, Lester The Nightfly, and Barney Hurley.

But I’m hopeful to stumble upon a newsy or insightful gem here or there.

So that’s it. Another newsletter. This one about Steely Dan.

#1 in my book.

— Jeff