#73 – Aja

Apple Music Rank: 73

Album: Aja

Artist: Steely Dan

Year: 1977

Genre: Rock

Was I familiar with Steely Dan?  Yes

Had I heard Aja?  Many times.

Thoughts on Aja: I can think of no album more enigmatic to me than Aja – an album I’ve dismissed more times than I can count, yet continues to appear repeatedly in my life begging for another listen only for me to reject it again for the same reason. If the definition of insanity actually is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, Aja has driven me insane more times than any album I’ve encountered in my life.

Side note: For the record, Merriam-Webster defines insanity as “a severely disordered state of the mind usually occurring as a specific disorder”. Who came up with that other definition that’s been beaten to death? Nowhere in this dictionary does it say anything about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results under the word “insanity”. Let’s agree to stop saying that’s the definition of insanity. Next time someone says to me, “You know the definition of insanity, right?” I’m going to reply with, “Yeah, it’s a severely disordered state of the mind usually occurring as a specific disorder,” just so I can see the stunned look on that person’s face. Thanks, as always, Merriam-Webster. OK, back to the post.

There are two things I feel I need to explain in an attempt to convey my complicated feelings about Aja. First: I do not hate Steely Dan or Aja. In my small circle of friends and family I’ve enjoyed my reputation as the guy who hates certain things when the dirty secret is that I really don’t. Except 99% of country music. I legitimately hate that shit and am stating it now for the record. Dave Matthews Band comes to mind first. I don’t hate Dave Matthews Band. I got sick of them while I was in college and bitched about it a few times, ranted about them being the first popular band since old Fezziwig’s Christmas party to feature a fiddle player, and became the guy who hates Dave Matthews. I actually paid my wedding DJ to not play any Dave Matthews and warned her that my friends would be begging her to play it and would offer her money. I said whatever they offer to pay, I’ll match it for her to not play it. Dave Matthews made her an extra $100 at my wedding reception. I revel in my reputation as the guy who hates Dave Matthews and it kills me to give my friends and family a peek behind the curtain, but the truth is, I don’t care enough about Dave Matthews or his band to hate them. What I don’t understand is the excessive love.

When I worked on the Project Crew cleaning dormitory bathrooms in Sandburg Halls at UW-Milwaukee in 1998-1999 there were two guarantees: Girls were going to cut pictures of Tyson Beckford out of magazines and tape them to the walls of their dorm rooms, and white dudes were going to be listening to Dave Matthews Band loud enough for an entire floor to hear. Every shift some room full of frat boys was blasting that song about ants marching. I didn’t understand the obsession with what I considered to be average music. By the way, Dave Matthews seems like a guy who doesn’t take himself too seriously. A good dude and a fun hang. I mean no disrespect. I just don’t dig the music and I couldn’t escape it in the late-90s. I’m done trying to explain. Instead, enjoy this hilarious scene from the TV show Community. While watching, imagine me talking about DMB instead of Jeff Winger talking about Barenaked Ladies and the rest of the group is my friends defending them.

Everything I said about Dave Matthews Band above applies to Steely Dan. In a discussion about music with my mom and/or sister about Steely Dan at some point in my life I probably have said I hate Steely Dan. It’s not really true. I just don’t understand all the love. The big difference between DMB and Steely Dan is that I think the people who love DMB generally see them as a fun jam band whose music represents good times in their lives. The people who love Steely Dan believe that they are legitimately a great band despite the fact that they’re named after a fictional steam-powered dildo, and I’m not here to tell them they’re wrong. I’m here to tell them that I just don’t get it. This leads me to my second point…

Certain music from the 70s/early-80s creeps me out. I don’t know how else to say it, and don’t ask me what kind of music, because it’s not exactly genre-specific. It makes me feel physically ill. Not like I want to vomit. Just like I have a hint of car sickness. I love Stevie Wonder, Sly Stone, Off the Wall-era Michael Jackson, early Prince, Earth Wind & Fire, Hall & Oates, Kool & The Gang, etc. Not all 70s music makes me feel car sick. Certain instruments, sounds, recording practices, harmonies, etc. from that era make my skin crawl. I wish I could be more specific, but it just is what it is. For whatever reason, no band’s sound hits that spot for me more than Steely Dan’s. The songs from Aja aren’t nearly as upsetting to me as some of their other songs like “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” or “Reelin’ in the Years“.

You might hear that and think, “Oh, you hate yacht rock.” Not exactly. First off, enough with the term “yacht rock”. It’s a corny name for the genre, but it’s the most universally understood, so I guess I’ll begrudgingly use it in this case. Secondly, everyone is quick to lump Steely Dan in with “yacht rock” and I’m not sure I agree. Any mix of “yacht rock” songs is a massive minefield for me. There’s an 80% chance I’m going to dislike the song, and better than 50% chance it’s going to give me that nauseating feeling I get from so much Steely Dan. There’s also a 10% chance I’m going to love it. Play me some “Baby Come Back” by Player, “What a Fool Believes” by Doobie Brothers, “This is It” by Kenny Loggins, or “Biggest Part of Me” by Ambrosia and I’m going to dig it. Boz Skaggs, LRB, Toto…I’m cool with them, too. I’ll take the risk on a yacht rock mix because there’s at least a chance I’ll enjoy some of the music and I’m willing to suffer through the parts that make me physically ill.

On the flip side, most (if not all) Crosby, Stills & Nash songs take me to a very dark place. America, Seals & Crofts, Dan Fogelberg, and Bob Seger (among others) do the same. What genre are they? That’s the music I don’t like. Southern rock? Folk rock? Whatever. Put Steely Dan with them.

Like I said, I know it probably doesn’t make sense. I just know this: Steely Dan is at the root of it. They represent everything about that era that makes me feel uneasy. There is one tie that binds all of the songs that give me that feeling: I remember them from when I was a kid. I was born in 1976. That might seem too young to remember anything from that era, but I remember a shocking amount about music from when I was very young. Music triggers more early memories for me than anything. Making things even more confusing, I have few unpleasant memories from my childhood. I recall being happy pretty much all the time. So why would music that I was hearing when I was only a few years old make me feel uneasy as an adult? Again, not all music. By the time I was five years old I was listening to the likes of Duran Duran, Michael Jackson, and Prince and loving them. I still love that music to this day. Why does Steely Dan have the opposite effect?

I think it just hit me: I used to get car sick all the time when I was little. One glance down to read something in a moving vehicle made me want to puke. The radio was always on in the car. Maybe those are the songs that were playing when I was getting car sick but was still too young to comprehend what I was listening to. When I hear those songs now my brain tells my body to get car sick. I’m going with that. It makes sense because Steely Dan makes me feel like I’m trying to read a Sweet Pickles book in the backseat of a Crown Vic on Highway 29 in 1980.

I’ll go on for the rest of my life like I always have – dismissing Steely Dan as a band I don’t like. Then I’ll have a conversation with my mom or sister about them and I’ll think, “I should give them another chance.” When I do I’ll think, “No, I was right the last time. I don’t like this.” Then enough time will go and the same thing will happen. Or, I’ll see a Yacht Rock documentary and hear someone say, “Aja is the best sounding album ever recorded,” and the music nerd in me will want to challenge that, so I’ll ask for an audiophile pressing of it for Christmas and my mom will oblige because she loves Steely Dan. Now I own a Steely Dan record that makes me feel slightly sick every time I hear it. It’s a strange cycle with one more twist: A lot of hip hop that I love samples Steely Dan.

Tell me, how can the song “Peg” give me that same feeling I’ve been ranting about for the past several paragraphs, and yet when you give several of the elements of that song to producer Prince Paul and De La Soul and they transform it into “Eye Know“, it becomes one of my favorite hip hop songs of all time? “Peg” creeps me out. “Eye Know” gives me nothing but good vibes. “Black Cow” sounds corny as hell to me, but it does make me want to listen to “Déjà Vu” by Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz, which immediately transports me to a house party in Milwaukee drinking an Alize or amaretto sour (or both) yelling, “Uptown baby! Uptown baby! We gets down baby!” Beyonce, MF Doom, Kanye West, Ice Cube, 3rd Bass, Naughty by Nature among the dozens who have sampled Steely Dan. Hip hop loves Steely Dan and I love old school hip hop. How did a band that I dislike inspire so much of the music that I love?

I don’t have the answer, and this time it can’t be cured with some Dramamine.

As far as Aja goes, I give up. I don’t hate it. I don’t love it. It’s just there and I’m done trying to figure it out. You love Steely Dan. Cool. You do you. I respect them and their meticulous approach to music, but they make me sick. Just know that anytime someone is talking about Steely Dan I’m probably thinking about De La Soul instead.

Favorite track:  Gotta go with “Peg” because it’s at the heart of De La Soul’s “Eye Know”.

Will I listen to Aja again? Of course I will. It’s inescapable.

Would I buy it on vinyl? I already own it.

To access more expert analysis of the Apple 100 Best Albums list click here.