10 Classic Rock Albums That Were AHEAD OF THEIR TIME
3. Aja - Steely Dan
If there's one genre that belongs in a specific time and place, it would be yacht rock. The minute that you hear acts like Rupert Holmes these days, you can already picture someone sitting in a lounge chair on some luxury yacht as they fall asleep in their Hawaiian shirt. Though the genre itself may have its place in history, what exactly happens when you give that sound to studio labrats?
On first listen, it's pretty easy to see why Steely Dan would be considered dad rock, with these songs sounding exactly like the kind of dopey songs you'd hear on a cruise. If we're talking from just a production standpoint though, this is probably one of the most immaculately crafted albums ever made, with songs that sound as fresh as they did when they were first released. These guys can shred too, with Donald Fagen and Walter Becker bringing in world class players to bring songs like Black Cow and the title track to life, including a career defining solo by drummer Steve Gadd.
Compared to the dry sounds of a lot of '70s production, this is kind of inventive craftsmanship that set the precedent for what we would expect in modern music production today. It might be easy to call this kind of thing dad rock, but most dads only wish to be as badass as this.