Aja

Becker and Fagen cycled through roughly 40 session musicians to get these seven tracks finished. They made Steve Gadd play the title track's drum part over and over until it was physically perfect. If it wasn't robotic, it wasn't good enough for them. You own that Ray Charles record on ABC too. Same label, same era, but lightyears apart in terms of obsession. Ray was catching lightning in a bottle; Steely Dan was building a lightning trap in a climate-controlled laboratory. The result is clinical, sure. But there’s a cold, hard brilliance to it that holds up better than the bloated arena rock you’ve got scattered through the rest of your shelves. It’s the sound of guys who hated the touring grind so much they decided to just become engineers who happened to write perfect pop songs. You don't have to like their personalities to respect the sheer willpower it took to weld these sounds together.

source: the clerk