Pretzel Logic |
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Released: February 20, 1974 Peak: 8 US, 37 UK, 5 CN, 18 AU, 12 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 1.0 US Genre: jazz rock |
Tracks:Song Title (Writers) [time] (date of single release, chart peaks)
Songs written by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen unless noted otherwise. Total Running Time: 33:45 The Players:
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Rating: 4.264 out of 5.00 (average of 28 ratings)
Quotable:--Awards:(Click on award to learn more).
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About the Album:“Before Donald Fagen and Walter Becker became the songwriting duo behind Steely Dan, they were tunesmiths with ABC, penning hits for such notables as Barbra Streisand.” RD When the band’s second album, Countdown to Ecstasy, fell short of the promise of their debut, Can’t Buy a Thrill, “Steely Dan responded by trimming the lengthy instrumental jams that were scattered across Countdown and concentrating on concise songs for Pretzel Logic.” AM That is, “the pair returned to Tin Pan Alley.” RD“Using three-minute pop as a framework, they decided to play ironic games with style and genre.” RD “While the shorter songs usually indicate a tendency toward pop conventions, that’s not the case with Pretzel Logic. Instead of relying on easy hooks, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen assembled their most complex and cynical set of songs to date. Dense with harmonics, countermelodies, and bop phrasing, Pretzel Logic is vibrant with unpredictable musical juxtapositions and snide, but very funny, wordplay.” AM The album was also significant for marking the end of Steely Dan as a band and their beginning as a studio collective. Fagen and Becker “began to assume control of the operation and started calling in the cream of L.A.’s studio musicians to record Pretzel Logic, using band members only for occasional overdubs. It was an arduous process, but the resulting album was worth the effort.” CRS “The opening track typifies the album.” RD “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number, opens with a syncopated piano line that evolves into a graceful pop melody.” AM It “is an affecting story of unrequited love which switches between light samba and piano ballad, until Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter’s beautifully phrased guitar solo shoots a thread of California country rock straight through the middle.” RD “The title track winds from a blues to a jazzy chorus – Becker and Fagen’s craft has become seamless while remaining idiosyncratic and thrillingly accessible.” AM “The backhanded Dylan tribute Barrytown can sit comfortably next to the gorgeous Any Major Dude Will Tell You,” AM which “is illuminated by beams of Orange County sunshine.” RD “The group had not forgotten how to bite…Monkey in Your Soul, which somehow crosses Noel Coward with Stax, is a wonderfully bitchy poison-pen letter.” RD “The wounded petulance of envy is given darkly comic treatment in Through with Buzz.” RD “The defiance of the lonely man is given cop-show dynamism in Night by Night.” RD “The bungled homicide of With a Gun should be made into a Coen Brothers movie.” RD “East St. Louis Toodle-Oo is playtime for the band and notable for introducing pedal steel guitar to the ragtime genre if nothing else.” RD “ Since the songs are now paramount, it makes sense that Pretzel Logic is less of a band-oriented album than Countdown to Ecstasy, yet it is the richest album in their catalog.” AM “Steely Dan made more accomplished albums than Pretzel Logic, but they never made a better one.” AM |
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First posted 4/3/2008; last updated 8/27/2026. |
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