Steely Dan Royal Scam CD

Steely Dan: Donald Fagen (vocals, keyboards); Walter Becker (guitar, bass).
Additional personnel: Larry Carlton, Elliot Randall, Dean Parks, Dennis Dias (guitar); Chuck Findley, Bob Findley, Slyde Hyde, Jim Horn, Plas Johnson, John Klemmer (horns); Victor Feldman (keyboards, percussion); Paul Griffin, Don Grolnick (keyboards); Chuck Rainey (bass); Bernard Purdie, Rick Marotta (drums); Gary Coleman (percussion); Venetta Fields, Clydie KIng, Sherlie Matthews, Tim Schmit, Michael McDonald (background vocals).
Recorded at ABC Studios, Los Angeles, California and A&R Studios, New York, New York. Includes liner notes by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen.
Digitally remastered by Roger Nichols (Digital Atomics, Miami, Florida).
All tracks have been digitally remastered.
The Royal Scam is the first Steely Dan record that doesn't exhibit significant musical progress from its predecessor, but that doesn't mean the album is any less interesting. The cynicism that was suppressed on Katy Lied comes roaring to the surface on The Royal Scam -- not only are the lyrics bitter and snide, but the music is terse, broken, and weary. Not so coincidentally, the album is comprised of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen's weakest set of songs since Can't Buy a Thrill. Alternating between mean-spirited bluesy vamps like "Green Earrings" and "The Fez" and jazzy soft rock numbers like "The Caves of Altamira," there's nothing particularly bad on the album, yet there are fewer standouts than before. Nevertheless, the best songs on The Royal Scam, like the sneering "Kid Charlemagne" and "Sign in Stranger," rank as genuine Steely Dan classics. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
It was the year of America's bicentennial celebration, but on 1976's THE ROYAL SCAM, Steely Dan masterminds Fagen and Becker did not share in the exultant spirit of the times. The title track--a vision of fallen America from the point of view of immigrants--has a mock-celebratory chorus: "See the glory of the Royal Scam," which typifies SCAM's heartfelt cynicism. In their next two releases (their last), Steely Dan's sound would smoothen and incorporate less rock. This is perhaps their darkest record, and for a band known for its arch mixture of L.A. cool and ennui, that's saying something.
Guitar heroes were roundly worshipped in the '70s, and two of the record's standout tracks, "Kid Charlemagne" and "Don't Take Me Alive," feature incendiary axe work by Larry Carlton. Interestingly, both glorify outsiders: The former tells the story of legendary drug chemist Owsley Stanley, and the latter is a first-person account of a murderer on the lam. Other highlights: the crisp "Green Earrings" the lounge-chair funk of "Haitian Divorce" and the inscrutable "Fez," whose principal lyric is "I'm never gonna do it without the fez on/don't make me do it without the fez on."Rolling Stone (p.101) - 5 stars out of 5 - "Fagen and Becker assembled a talent pool composed primarily of jazz specialists who showed they could rock and swing all at once when so inspired."
Q (6/00, p.131) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...Sleek, smart, deliciously cynical....Sounding like a million dollars and crammed with the low-life tales...[it] instantly raised the standard for sophisticated quirkiness..."