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Album Review: If you somehow missed the news that the album Aja is Steely Dan's finest effort, I'm hear to say it plainly: It is
without question their topper. Aja is a masterpiece of studiocraft, with production qualities to please the pickiest
audiophile, and with songwriting and playing so good that they propelled Steely Dan into the stratosphere of rock
stardom in the late 1970s. Most of the songs got much radio play over the next decades, including the monster hits
"Josie" and "Deacon Blues." The crowning achievement of Aja is the title track—an 8-minute epic that transports
you to a festive garden party in some far-off Asian land. "Home at Last," another excellent song, transforms the
problems of a modern relationship into a Homeric tale. "Black Cow," "Peg" and "I Got the News"—all fine songs in
their own right—round out the set. Aja was the album where Steely Dan perfected the slick jazz-rock sound they had
been moving toward, and because their creative juices were peaking at the time, the result was a set of seven songs
that is nearly without flaw.
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