Maybe no classic rock act so deserves a modern reassessment as Steely Dan. The ostensibly square yacht rock band—composed of Donald Fagen, the late Walter Becker, and an army of intensely talented studio musicians—blended soft rock with advanced jazz theory. Never nerdy enough to be called progressive, never swaggering enough to make cock rock, Steely Dan were the sophisticated wallflowers of the 1970s, a dark mirror to the jocular Eagles. Underneath their über-geeky exterior lurked a dark, sarcastic, and cutting lyrical intellect. The sharp irony of, say, Father John Misty or even David Byrne has no precedent without Fagen singing “Deacon Blues.” JOSEPH SCHAFER

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