Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Logic often be damned, and lucidity be unquiet, for to create art we need to listen to voices in the air that speak to the inner turmoil of existence, and be prepared for the brilliance that shines from being in tune with observation, being on the same wave length as the colours that shape the images that becomes the sculptures of music, of novels, of poetry and drama…for logic only takes you so far, what we need to truly love life is the translucence of self-expression.
In its 50th year, Steely Dan’s Pretzel Logic arguably stands up to its time with a soberness of precision that defied what came before and what would follow soon after.
The sound that frames the album was haunting, unrivalled dare it be said, but it also seems now to forewarn of a change in the air, and so it shows that as the band, led by the talented Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, gave tracks such as the phenomenal opener of Rikki Don’t Lose That Number, as truths and memories swirled in the air that encompass songs such as Any Major Dude Will Tell You, Charlie Freak, With A Gun, and the album title track of Pretzel Logic, change would soon be upon one of 1970’s easy rock gilded bands.
There is no doubting the sheer volume of the album, and whilst the follow up to the recording, Katy Lied, would be arguably seen as consummate, especially with the inclusion of Michael McDonald on backing vocals, Pretzel Logic holds each moment as though you are living within its transparent exchange, a lucidity of musical clarity which perhaps could be identified as the beginning of a period to which America’s soft rock era, its AOR transmission and influence began in earnest.
The album sets a tone for the future with its array of guest musicians, including future Eagle alumni Timothy B. Schmit, Jeff Porcaro, David Paich, the sensational Michael Omartian, and the beauty that encompassed Wilton Felder, and it is in this that opportunity of being seen as the complete studio band, of pushing Messers Becker and Fagen into the realm of creators extraordinaire, and as the logic is grasped, so the divinity of the situation is revealed, and Steely Dan truly began their reign.
A sensational album, Pretzel Logic is the sober reality of a sculptor understanding the feel of the beauty to be released.
Ian D. Hall