Hi everyone,
Okay - Steely Dan's third album Pretzel Logic is up for review. I had fallen behind in my reviews, hence the Mr. Hurry McHurry Pants reference at the start.
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Here's my review of Pretzel Logic, Mr. Hurry McHurry Pants 😊 😁 😝
This album is probably the hardest for me to review. When I heard it as a kid - I dismissed it. Except for Rikki. I loved that one.
When I started really appreciating Steely Dan - after the revelations of Countdown To Ecstasy I mentioned in my previous review - I found a lot to like about this one. However - I did feel that it was a retreat from the advances they'd made on Countdown. 11 tracks in 34 minutes - this is a shorter album than Can't Buy A Thrill - and it even has one more song!
Outside of Rikki - the one tune that really stood out for me was - of all things - Charlie Freak. Just like King of the World - I think I really like the narrative driven Steely Dan songs. Love this song - and the sleigh bells? Sounds like Christmas for the Dan to me! I have been known to auto-repeat this song a few times before moving on. Plus - the piano on that track? Amazing.
Found out years later that this was one of their original songwriting demos. That may have been the issue with this one for me - the reversion back from the stretched out arrangements of Countdown to the two minute single conventions of the day. They may have really been trying to write normal "hit" songs on this one - hence the digging back into their songwriting demo material.
But normal for the Dan - is another man's Charlie Freak.😊
So - this was a slow grower for me. Now, I can really appreciate the album as a whole - and with the exception of East St. Louis Toodle-Oo - it really holds together. I'm not a Toodle-Oo hater - not by any means - but it almost seems out of place amongst the misanthropy, although now with CD, it serves as kind of a long intro to Parker's Band. Any Major Dude is a great deep catalog cut - the acoustic guitar is particularly tasty on that one. Barrytown (another demo dusted off) and Night By Night kind of have the patented Dan sound down. Pretzel Logic is a puzzle - unlocked by the time travel narrative drive - but still a puzzle. With A Gun just proves how quickly the band could shift gears - country Dan, anyone? And Monkey In Your Soul sounds like the perfect summation of this phase.
And - that brings me to a theory I've been working on for a while.
Dan albums come in pairs.
Hear me out.
If we take Can't Buy A Thrill out of the picture for a second - I'll get back to it, I promise - then each Dan album pairs up in a way. You have Countdown to Ecstasy & Pretzel Logic as twins - Countdown's longer arrangements, Pretzel's shorter as a reaction. Then the studio cats Dan of Katy Lied & and the "studio cats turn-up the guitars" of the The Royal Scam. Move on to the laid back jazz vibe of Aja & Gaucho, followed by the twin solos Kamakiriad and 11 Tracks of Whack. These two solos led to Two Against Nature and the live band reaction to it of Everything Must Go.
If you take the best of the songwriting comps - Aero record's The Early Years comes to mind - that kind of matches Can't Buy A Thrill as its proto-twin.
It's not a perfect analogy by any means - what matches with the Nightfly? Alive In America? Circus Money? Sunken Condos? But - you see what I'm getting at here. It seems like - especially when they work together - they'd re-invent themselves, debut that on an album, and try a different take on it for a subsequent album before trying something new.
Even the two compilations during the active band years - Greatest Hits and Gold - follow this pattern. Gold sort of fills in the missing bits for Greatest Hits - like a Greatest Hits 2. (The original Gold, BTW - not the Extended Edition.)
Anyway - Pretzel Logic - for me - the ultimate slow grower. Didn't love it at first, but - yeah - probably one of their best.
Cheers,
Paul
P.S. I have the quad vinyl of this one. No big surprises or mixdown revelations. Rumor is that it might be a "double stereo" version of the album, as opposed to a different quad mix, but I don't have my quad setup together anymore - stereo only - so I can't confirm or deny that. I believe it's QS - officially it's listed as Command Quadraphonic.
More about the quad-ness - or lack thereof - here: Steely Dan: Can't Buy A Thrill [QS/Q8] and Steely Dan: Pretzel Logic [QS/Q8]
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