Maps of Music

Aja (1977)

Where the lyrics of Aja take you, and where it was really made.

The title is pronounced like 'Asia', but Fagen has said the name came from a Korean woman who married the brother of one of his high-school friends.

Key places

Village Recorders, West Los Angeles (1977)

Recording site Village Recorders — The Village Recorders in West Los Angeles is listed among the studios where Aja was recorded. The point marks the studio's city-level location. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Producers Workshop, Hollywood (1977)

Recording site Producers Workshop — Producers Workshop in Hollywood is listed among the studios where Aja was recorded. The point marks the studio's city-level location. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Warner Bros. Recording Studios, North Hollywood (1977)

Recording site Amigo Studios — Warner Bros. Recording Studios in North Hollywood is listed among the studios where Aja was recorded. The point marks the studio's city-level location. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

ABC Recording Studios, Los Angeles (1977)

Recording site ABC Recording Studios — ABC Recording Studios in Los Angeles is listed among the studios where Aja was recorded. The point marks the studio's city-level location. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Sound Labs, Hollywood (1977)

Recording site Sound Labs — Sound Labs in Hollywood is listed among the studios where Aja was recorded. The point marks the studio's city-level location. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

A&R Studios, New York City (1977)

Recording site A&R Recording Studios — "Peg" was recorded in New York instead of Los Angeles, and A&R Studios in New York City is listed among the studios. The point marks the studio's city-level location. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Aja: sixth studio album by the American rock band Steely Dan
• Released 23 September 1977 by ABC Records
• Produced by Gary Katz, as with all of the band's previous albums
• Nearly 40 musicians enlisted, with longer and more sophisticated compositions and arrangements
• Peaked at number three on the Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart and number five on the UK Albums Chart
• Became Steely Dan's most commercially successful release
• Spawned the singles "Peg", "Deacon Blues", and "Josie"

Background

• Walter Becker and Donald Fagen pushed the band to experiment with different combinations of session players
• Title track runs about eight minutes and is built from separately written sections
• Middle section adapted from the instrumental "Stand by the Seawall", which predates the band's formation
• Solos on the title track by Wayne Shorter, Steve Gadd, Denny Dias, and Becker
• Becker did not perform on "Black Cow" or "Peg"
• Saxophonist for "Deacon Blues" identified as Pete Christlieb after Katz brought in several players

Recording

• Engineered by longtime engineers Roger Nichols and Bill Schnee
• Sessions held at several Los Angeles studios and one in New York City
• "Peg" was the final song recorded for the album and the only one made in New York
• Elliot Scheiner, who had parted ways with the band during The Royal Scam, was brought back to engineer "Peg"

Cover

• Cover photograph by Hideki Fujii of Japanese model and actress Sayoko Yamaguchi
• Design by Patricia Mitsui and Geoff Westen

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · www.discogs.com · es.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Formed in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, in 1971 by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen.
• Becker and Fagen met in 1967 at Bard College and began writing songs together.
• They moved to Los Angeles after producer Gary Katz hired them as staff songwriters for ABC Records.
• The band takes its name from a dildo mentioned in William S. Burroughs' novel Naked Lunch.

Members

• Walter Becker (guitars, bass, backing vocals) and Donald Fagen (keyboards, lead vocals) were the core duo.
• Early band members included Denny Dias, Jeff Baxter, and Jim Hodder.
• Fagen reluctantly took on lead vocals after the search for a suitable singer failed.

Career

• Debut album Can't Buy a Thrill (1972) produced the hits "Do It Again" and "Reelin' in the Years".
• After 1974 the band stopped touring and continued as a studio project using session musicians.
• Aja (1977) became the band's top-selling album and won a Grammy for engineering.
• The band disbanded in 1981 and reunited in 1993.
• Two Against Nature (2000) won the Grammy for Album of the Year.
• Becker died in 2017; Fagen continued the band until 2024 and retired in 2026.
• Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001; has sold over 40 million records.

Reception

At release

• Michael Duffy in Rolling Stone (1977): the conceptual framework of the music shifted from a rock and roll pretext toward a smoother, clean, and calculated mutation of rock, pop, and jazz idioms
• Duffy: the lyrics remain pleasantly obtuse and cynical, and the duo's intellectual self-consciousness may be what makes them the perfect musical antiheroes of the Seventies
• Robert Christgau in The Village Voice: first disliked the record, then found it stretched him more than The Royal Scam did
• Greg Kot, later in the Chicago Tribune: found the clinical coldness first seen on The Royal Scam perfected here
• Barry Walters in a retrospective Rolling Stone review: praised the rare way rock captures the complications of adult sorrows

Reappraisal

• Ben Ratliff in The New York Times: created a new standard for the relationship between jazz and rock
• Amanda Petrusich in Pitchfork: as much a jazz record as a pop one
• Ken Kessler in Hi-Fi News & Record Review: gave top marks to the recording and performance of the 2007 all-analog LP reissue
• Ranked 145th on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003 and rose to 63rd in 2020
• Inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2003
• Included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die in 2006

Records

• Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart: peaked at number three, reaching the top five within three weeks of release
• UK Albums Chart: number five, the band's highest UK chart placing
• United States: highest-charting Steely Dan album there, with one of the first RIAA Platinum certifications for one million sales
• 20th Annual Grammy Awards (1978): won Best Engineered Recording – Non-Classical
• 1978 Grammy nominations: Album of the Year, and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals
• 2010: selected for the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · fr.wikipedia.org · pt.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• "Peg" was the final song recorded for the album and the only one made in New York instead of Los Angeles.
• Fagen has said the title came from a Korean woman who married the brother of one of his high-school friends.
• Elliot Scheiner had parted ways with the band during The Royal Scam, but was forgiven and brought back to engineer "Peg".
• Becker did not perform on "Black Cow" or "Peg".
• Multitrack masters for "Black Cow" and the title track went missing, scrapping a late-1990s surround mix.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · fr.wikipedia.org

Maps of Ages ↗ (mapsofages.com)

Privacy · Contact