Track Listing

1. Black Friday
2. Bad Sneakers
3. Rose Darling
4. Daddy don't live in that New York City no more
5. Doctor Wu
6. Everyone's Gone To The Movies
7. Your Gold Teeth II
8. Chain lightning
9. Any world (that I'm welcome to)
10. Throw Back The Little Ones

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8269 in Music
• Released on: 1999-06-28
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .22 pounds
• Running time: 35 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
The last of the truly classic first four Steely Dan albums, the 1975 Katy Lied also sounds like the best. While retaining a solid rock foundation, the music finds Walter Becker and Donald Fagen engaging their jazz influences more successfully than ever; Fagen's piano fills alone are some of the most impressive music laid to tape in the 1970s. The songs, too, rate with the team's very best, whether coolly anticipating global financial collapse ("Black Friday"), celebrating the legacy of a mob-hit victim ("Daddy Don't Live in That New York City No More"), or letting the Dan's guard down with a pained three-minute survey of life on Earth ("Any World [That I'm Welcome To]"). --Rickey Wright

CD Description
In 1975 after an extraordinarily successful run of releaseswhich culminated in that "steely" masterpiece, PRETZEL LOGIC, the Dan shifted direction a bit and opened their music upon KATY LIED. The sound is warmer, the already sophisticated harmonies somewhat richer, a little bit closer to combo jazz. It's as if jazz pianist Bill Evans collaborated with BobDylan.
KATY LIED contains Steely Dan's most emotional, even passionate music up to that point, matched only by the brilliant AJA a few years later. Donald Fagen's acerbic vocals forgoe the double tracking of the previous albums, the sarcasm melting into something close to vulnerability in a songlike "Doctor Wu", maybe the greatest single tune Fagen and Becker ever wrote. KATY LIED is also notable for the appearance of vocalist Michael McDonald, whose grainy baritone blends particularly well with Fagen's unique sound.

Customer Reviews

Buy it! Buy it! Buy it!
Somewhat oddly, if the rest of these reviews are anything to go by, this was the first Dan album I ever heard or bought. Although I can take or leave a couple of the tracks - I've never really got into either "Daddy Don't Live...." or "Everyone's Gone...." - the album is worth buying for three reasons:

1) The soaring Denny Dias guitar solo on "Your Golf Teeth II" - which is the closest thing to aural paradise ever recorded
2) Michael Omartian's piano triads right at the end of "Throw Back the Little Ones"; and
3) The all-round excellence of "Doctor Wu"

So don't be put off by the cover - just buy the damn album and enjoy it!

(By the way, I'm not sure that the Amazon reviewer is right to praise Donald Fagen for the piano fills. I think that Michael Ormartian played piano throughout, and that Fagen hardly touched the Bosendorfer that they had bought specially for the album sessions.)

A missed classic
Having owned most of the Steely Dan catalogue for some years this album was a hole that I had never felt the need to fill, maybe its the odd cover thats off putting. This however ranks at the very top of the Steely Dan tree, the lyrics are just as clever as one expects but there is an easy accessability that can be missing when Becker and Fagen get too clever for their own good. From the wildly prophetic Black Friday through the catchy Bad Sneakers, the gorgeous but silly Doctor Wu, and one of my personal all time favourites in Any World. I have only one minor minor quibble, not being a fan of Michael Macdonald I find his backing vocals intrusive given his distinctive voice. If you only ever get two Steely Dan CDs make it this and Cant Buy a Thrill.

A Revelation
I bought Katy Lied over 25 years ago and was a bit disappointed. After Can't Buy a Thrill, Countdown and The Royal Scam I found it a bit dull and 'muddy'. It was the Steely Dan album I played least. It was only years later that I learned Becker and Fagen were so depressed about the sound of the album even they would never listen to it.

The remastered version is a revelation. It's like seeing an Old Master that's been restored after gathering centuries of dust and grime. The colours are suddenly vibrant and the scene full of life. The sun has been let in, making Katy Lied sound much more like the precursor of The Royal Scam.

Despite its roll call of drug dealers, gangsters, paedophiles, pimps and prostitutes, it represents some of the most beautiful music ever created, by one the most underrated partnerships in rock.