The Definitive 1000 Songs Of All Time 1955 to 2005: Number 463

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Number 463 - Steely Dan

Number 463

Steely Dan

"FM"

(1978)

Genre:Rock

Les Nessman, you sexy beast you

I cannot recall seeing the film "FM The Movie", but i sure remember the Grammy winning "FM Soundtrack". If you were fortunate enough to purchase the vinyl album [I was not] it was a powerhouse of a compilation of 70's rock stars. Steely Dan, Billy Joel, Joe Walsh, Tom Petty, Queen, Eagles, Boston & Foreigner are some of the artists in this magnificent album [And not one bum song in the album]. I wonder if this album will end up in Alan Heller's "All Time 1000 Albums"?

Thinking of this time period & Steely Dan's "FM" always reminds me of the classic TV show "WKRP in Cincinnati" with good ole Johnny Fever [Howard Hesseman] and the suffering Les Nessman [Richard Sanders] bumbling around a radio station, week after week, for 4 years. And if you're a fan of "WKRP" you have to [really have to] mention the name Loni Anderson and for reasons I really don't have to explain.

circa 1972

Appropriately, the soundtrack for the 1978 movie FM feels like a radio play list of the era, collecting songs from Joe Walsh, Randy Meisner, Boz Scaggs, and other '70s radio staples. Steely Dan's title track, Queen's "We Will Rock You," Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band's "Night Moves," Billy Joel's "Just The Way You Are," and Boston's "More Than a Feeling" are some of the highlights from this double-disc set, which also includes tracks from Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Foreigner, and Linda Ronstadt, all of whom also appeared in the film. Though FM itself wasn't exactly a box-office smash, its soundtrack is a surprisingly durable and entertaining collection of classic rock that is arguably better than many of the '70s rock compilations available today. ~ [Heather Phares, All Music Guide]

Roll Call ...

For more Steely Dan see Number 907

For Joe Walsh see Number 464

For Billy Joel see Number 469 & #849

For Tom Petty see Number 585

For Queen see Number 539, #747, #799 & #805

For Eagles see Number 509

For Boz Scaggs see Number 632

Bob Seger see Number 570

For Linda Ronstadt see Number 665

What does Rolling Stone think of Steely Dan?

Less a band than a concept, Steely Dan was one of the most advanced, successful, and mysterious pop units of the '70s. Combining pop hooks with jazz harmonies, complicated time changes and cryptic, often highly ironic lyrics, the band sounded like no one else. Because of the perfectionism of founders Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, the outfit rarely toured, and toward the end, was composed almost entirely of session musicians, while Becker and Fagen began to play less and less on their own albums. Producer Gary Katz became Steely Dan's "third member," as much because of Becker and Fagen's insistence on pristine sound quality as for Katz's role in forming the band. With Becker and Fagen fronting a version of Steely Dan that toured to great success in 1993, they proved that their long-lived cult was very much alive. And the 2000 release of Two Against Nature resurrected the band as a viable recording unit, and also won Steely Dan several Grammy Awards. ~ [Source:Rolling Stone - from The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll Simon & Schuster, 2001]

Rolling Stone magazine deemed their '463rd Song of all Time' was "Rain" by The Beatles. The Beatles has appeared in The Definitive 1000 @ Number 489, #587, #894 & #947

Other songs with reference to Steely Dan #532, #604, #742, #868, #926

Rolling Stone Top 500 Songs ranked this song at Number (Not one song) and the Album ranked at (Its a OST ... so rack off)

This song has a Definitive 1000 rating of 76.6 out of 108