Album: Can’t Buy A Thrill
Track Number: 2
I recently came across a conversation on Twitter where a so-called Steely Dan fan claimed that “Can’t Buy A Thrill” wasn’t a real SD album and that “Countdown To Ecstasy” was the real first album. The conversation was essentially frustrated Dan fans lamenting the popularity of “Dirty Work”, which supposedly doesn’t sound like a real Steely Dan song. Supposedly the pair didn’t even want to include it on their debut album, and tried to pawn it off to other ABC Records acts. In case you don’t know already, “Dirty Work” isn’t sung by Donald Fagen. He won’t even sing it live in concert - when I went to see them in November 2021, he introduced the all-female backup singer squad known as the Danettes to take the lead.
Okay, so it’s not a deep cut, and it’s definitely not one of Steely Dan’s best tracks. But ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. If you read about Steely Dan’s history, you know Becker & Fagen had a songbook that they’d been working on since meeting each other and forming a band at Bard College. When they first moved to New York City, this songbook was their entrypoint to the Brill Building, where they met producer Gary Katz and set off on their journey to create what I think is one of the best debut albums of any band of any era. I suspect this song was part of that original songbook, and I think it speaks to their extraordinary songwriting talent. It’s not exactly easy to pump out a catchy hit, is it?
Plus, there’s a lot of hallmarks of “classic Dan” on the track, and a really close attention to detail not often found on other hits from the era. Listen to the quiet guitar playing in the right channel in the first 30 seconds of the track. I’ll keep coming back to this over and over again, but these little overdubs (underdubs?) are what make Steely Dan truly great composers of sound to me. Rich, well recorded instruments, expertly placed in a stereo soundstage. A fadeout with just a little bit of variation in the organ line. And the lyrics are simple, but they’re definitely Steely Dan: self-loathing, adultery, and terrible trouble.
Melodically it’s relatively simple, radio-friendly, and eminently hummable. Everyone knows it because it was in The Sopranos, The Simpsons, Suicide Squad, and Euphoria. It probably gets the most radio play behind “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” and “Do It Again”. In that way it’s many people’s introduction to Steely Dan, a gateway to the rich pantheon. So for many people it’s one of the only Steely Dan songs they recognize. That’s not a bad thing! Use it to proselytize, not put down people who like it. Recognize its exceptional qualities and its commonplace alike. And queue it up for karaoke night, because everyone knows it and it’s damn fun to sing.