Steely Dan and Elvis Costello are now considered mainstream, and certainly both have courted collaboration with mainstream artists. They've also both scored hits with some very unlikely music, should one choose to delve a little deeper than how catchy the songs often are. And despite their differences, Steely Dan and Costello are tied together in deeper ways than one might think.
Could anything sound less punk than Steely Dan? Aja is about as chill an album that has ever been released, and Gaucho may be even more so. But let's consider how Steely Dan named itself after “Steely Dan III from Yokohama,” a dildo from William S. Burroughs' classic novel Naked Lunch. Burroughs might be considered the godfather of what punk came to represent, which was a subversion, and even rejection, of mainstream culture. Patti Smith was among the many musicians influenced by Burroughs, and Burroughs' stark aesthetic has proven an enduring influence not just on punk but on post-punk artists like Sonic Youth and Pere Ubu.
Donald Fagen and Walter Becker showed their affinity for the forbidden and the darkly yet subtly wickedly humorous by naming their band after an absurd Burroughs reference. It's perfect for people whose spirit was punk even if their music wasn't as obviously part of the genre.
Both Steely Dan and Costello seem to have a soft spot in their heart for classic pop and old rock and
Steely Dan may reference Brubeck and older popular culture artifacts, but its own bemused treatment of nostalgia and looking back to fetishize what has come before proves that Becker and Fagen could never truly be pegged as retro artists. Nor could Costello, whose own aesthetic was very much part of what became “New Wave.”
Like many punk bands, Steely Dan and Costello both stripped back ideas generally about what music could be about and rebuilt their own way of commenting on life and society. They both played on the nostalgia of listeners with words, sounds and sentiments in a subversive and creative way that might have come off as too clever or smart for some people, but both artists also seem obvious in their dry humor and sublime sarcasm if you're open to it.
It's strange to think that Aja came out in
The same year, 1977, Elvis Costello's debut album My Aim is True hit the streets. Both albums came in the wake of Sex Pistols early singles but before
These days, audiences are bit more savvy about what music is about and more aware of subtext than they were in the '70s. And Steely Dan and Elvis Costello have emerged intact as both artistically and intellectually respectable artists who use refined sounds to express dark, stark truths about life and society. Elvis Costello once said something about how he was never an angry young man — he was always an angry old man. Was he serious? Or was that another bit of wry humor? It's difficult to say exactly, and that is also some of the enduring appeal of Costello and Steely Dan — they never dumb it down for you and by not doing so encourage an audience that is a little sharper and hipper than it probably knew it could be.
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If you'd like to contact me, Tom Murphy, on Twitter, my handle is @simianthinker.