Quick Hits, Vol. 186 (Steely Dan, Steely Dan, Rainbow Kitten Surprise, Maimouna Youssef)

Steely Dan - Pretzel Logic. 1974 album, so I know this is ancient news to some of you, but Rolling Stone did a chart the other day showing the best Steely Dan albums and I thought I'd try it out. I've always thought "Peg" and "Hey Nineteen" are goofy classics, but those aren't even on this album that RS called the best of the group. The best part of Steely Dan is the funkiness of the tunes. At times, that funk bleeds into cheesy 70's tropes, but it also creates cool spaces for good music to sneak through in unexpected ways. "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" is the song on here that I knew before, and definitely wins for streaming count at 12.3 million. But I want you to hear the Grateful Dead-esque "Any Major Dude Will Tell You," instead. Second most streamed at 4.7 million, and I dig the feathery guitar trills.

One of the dudes in this band passed away a year or two ago, and I recall reading people talking about he was a musical genius at piecing together cool sounds. Well, I don't know who stole this sound from the other, but the little breakdowns after each verse are classic Dead stuff. This album is kind of dad rock (the kind of stuff people would probably call yacht rock these days, but that moniker makes me want to die, so I'm going to avoid it). But the tunefulness, the amount of melody, it is way higher and more robust than you get in modern rock. I like that. On the other hand, I think the heavy use of horns and organ/synth is what makes it feel cornball and turns me off, even though those parts of the instrumentation are what make this unique. Interesting foray into old music I didn't know. I'll let this go, but I'm glad I tried it out.

Steely Dan - Aja. And the second best album on the RS list, 1977's Aja, takes the funk up another notch. A few of these tracks are instantly recognizable because they've been used as samples in rap songs - revealing that others can sense the funkiness. "Black Cow" was used in "Deja Vu," by Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz, "Peg" was sampled by De La Soul in "Eye Know" ("I know I love you betta!"), and I swear I've heard the opening of "Deacon Blues" in a rap song, even though I can't figure out where from the internet. Quick aside - My favorite rap sample from Steely Dan though is Ice Cube's "Don't Trust 'Em," which pulls a nugget from "Green Earrings" (which is not on this album, so I should stop talking about it right now). "Peg" is the star of this album, although "Deacon Blues" is close in the number of streams, 13.2 million vs. 11.7 million. These songs remind me so much of my time working at the Adult Contemporary radio station here in Austin. Smooooooooth.

Also, YouTube is amazing. There is an 8 minute long making-of video for Peg. I know this is deeply nerdy, but it kind of rules.

Love the bassist who is sneak slapping behind their back. And then the complete analness in trying to find the exact right guitar sound for the solos - lets try out eight different dudes, pick them to pieces, and then agree that one of the eight that sounds pretty wild is the right one. And Michael McDonald has such a cool voice. Anyway, interesting stuff. "Josie" is a good track as well. I won't keep the album around but cool dive back into history. And I still think "Hey Nineteen" is my favorite SD tune.

Rainbow Kitten Surprise - How to: Friend, Love, Freefall. Well, I had previously put them in the running for the worst band name of all time, but now I see that their absolutely awful naming skills also bleed over to the naming of the albums. What the freaking hell is what supposed to mean? it's like the lyrics to a Migos song, just stream of consciousness silliness jammed together.

You might recall these guys after I pimped them mercilessly last year before ACL because their indie rock action is so very good and tasty - like old school Kings of Leon brought into modern times. I ended up seeing them both weekends and it was super fun stuff (although the poor guys got so sweaty during the weekend one show I thought they might shrivel up and die right there on stage). If I'm being perfectly honest, this album isn't as good as their prior albums. I want to keep loving it, because I genuinely liked the concerts and their old music, but I've made my way through the album a good number of times and I'd say there are some good bits, but not an excellent whole offering. You can tell that by looking at stream count - most of the songs are under a million streams, but the best one has 2.3 million. Here is "Fever Pitch."

First off, that video is great. Something very cool about the cowboys getting funky. Second, the funkiness of that tune is fine, as is the bit when he says to "simmer dooooown." The other most popular song is "Holy War," with just over 1.1 million streams - but I don't love it nearly as much, more of a plodding sound that reminds me more of something Blue October would release (and if you know me that is not a compliment). "It's Called: Freefall" reminds me of something else, maybe Modest Mouse. I dunno, but its actually been growing on me. The whole album actually has - my original review I wrote (before another 4 or 5 streams of the disc) was much less complimentary of the album. "Hide" sounds like the classic RKS that I like, old King of Leon tunes. I'm not saying the album is bad, because its not, but many of the songs just ease on by like two warm innings of at bats in a 14-2 summertime baseball game. When you try to remember them later, you know you were at a game, but you don't recall those individual tries. But the more I've been through it the more I want to go back and do it some more.

Maimouna Youssef - Vintage Babies. I heard her for the first time the other day during the August Greene Tiny Desk concert, where she throws down a bad ass verse. Damn. So I thought I'd fire up this 2017 album and see if she goes the same route in her normal tunes. Not so much. These tunes aren't bad, but they are more Erykah Badu (or Beyonce) and less Kamaiyah, and I'd rather hear more rapping and knowledge dropping, and less pretty singing over gentle, lovely tunes. You get that in "Never Bring Me Down," which contains the lyrics I loved in the first place from the August Greene concert. "Sometimes bein' a woman's like bein' black twice, I gotta scream fire instead of rape and you tell me to act nice, stay pretty, look slim, don't talk loud, don't think, don't feel, don't act proud." Over some sustained organ blasts and a creeping beat. I dig that one. The tune includes some Michelle Obama speech clips at the end, but it also comes after a skit that (I think) is more Michelle Obama talking about Trump's Access Hollywood tape, and then goes into a clip from the movie A Color Purple. None of these songs have more than 10k streams on Spotify, although she does have a song ("I Got a Man") from a 2011 album with almost 300k streams. This one is not her most popular, or my favorite, but I couldn't find either of those available on YouTube, so you get "Shine Your Light," with 4,147 streams.

Meh. Always good to go out there and try out something new, but too much sermonizing over generically smooth beats. I'll let it go.