In hindsight, Steely Dan’s Zelig-like presence in sample-based hip-hop looks like a harbinger of the band’s current renaissance: A duo that was one of the most polarizing acts in rock even at its peak, in the 1970s, has lately acquired an army of new fans, many of them remarkably young. But what was it doing in a pop song? “Rikki” ’s strange combination of jazz, rock, and R&B, alchemized into a near-frictionless sonic slickness, seemed antithetical to the grunge-era ethos of anti-establishment, heart-on-your-sleeve authenticity. I recognized the bass piano line from Horace Silver’s bossa-jazz chestnut “Song for My Father,” because I’d played it in my own jazz-piano lessons. The guy singing in a plaintive, nasal voice seemed pretty sure that Rikki was, in fact, going to lose that number every time he sang “And you could have a change of hea-a-art,” a gnarled run of notes followed that sounded oddly aggressive. I knew the band’s 1974 hit, “ Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” a steady presence on classic-rock radio, but I had trouble wrapping my head and ears around it.
Steely Dan was also in the midst of a decades-long hiatus from releasing new studio albums, after putting out seven from 1972 to 1980.
Steely Dan-the musical handle of the songwriting pair Walter Becker and Donald Fagen-was considered toxically uncool. Music obsessive that I was, this confounded me. Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.
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