I understand DrumEatDrum's comment....actually I don't....apparently. I guess from 1966 to 1970 The Beatles were over produced since they never played live again?
Not sure what the Beatles has to do with it. Apples and Oranges.
But while the Beatles were dysfunctional to a degree in their last few years they were still
a band. And most of the studio work was experimentation in the "what happens if we do this" as opposed to "lets do it until it's perfect".
42 musicians on one album.......so what? Did you pay for them? 11 engineers. Big deal. Who cares?
No, I didn't pay for them. But that doesn't mean I have to pay for their albums either.
The Dan are really a "duo" and not a "band" anyway. Like Hall & Oates.
Interesting comparison. One difference was Hall & Oats didn't have the sheer number of different studio musicians in their hey day.
Pick up any of there more popular 80's albums, and it's the same guys on most every song on any album. Their two most popular albums, Private Eyes and H2O had mostly all the same guys on it.
Granted, this wasn't the case with their 70's or 90's material, but can anyone remember their 70's or 90's material?
Still, it's an interesting comparison. Although Hall is better singer than Fagan.; he is more on par with former Dan back up singer Micheal McDonald.
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Thanks for all the responses so far. I guess I'll keep my Steely Dan songs in my live sets!
However, not to start a fight with DED, I must point out that we were just discussing the fact that there may be ghost drummers on some of our other favorite band recordings too. If we were talking about band vibe and spontaneity, what of those situations? I've heard stories where Jim Keltner (the man who played on Josie) ghost drummed for Aerosmith. With stories like that flying around, how do we even know they didn't use ghost guitarists and bassists either?
Well, Bo, I've never claimed to like Aerosmith either!
And yes, we were discussing ghost drumming, but I never said I listened to all the bands discussed.
I met a second engineer who was working at Ocean Way Studios long ago when they were doing big business, and he said they had a whole room full of 2" tape of Metallica tracking songs and he said their album is a complete edit. Those guys couldn't even get through one track. It was all razor blade edits!
Metallica has never denied this. Go back and find Lars Ulrich's earliest interviews in Modern Drummer and he explains this process.
But tape edits are super common, from the Beatles to Eric Clapton to just about anyone.
So, I think the Dan is just being honest. If they're using a bunch of different musicians and producers, at least they're telling you about it. .
Fair enough, and I'm being honest, I've never liked them.
But you know, if you put a thread up about any band, you're going to get people who love them and hate them.