Steely Damn

I have been getting DEEP into some Steely Dan. What can I say about them... other than, they have 3 perfect qualities:

• Great Songs. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker are great songwriters. I heard that they were actually professional song writers before they started Steely Dan for fun, more or less. But yeah, the songs are hooky, but remain interesting with cool changes and/or weird and surprising bridges, etc. I've not read too many lyrics yet, but from what I can gather so far, they're pretty good story tellers as well.
  
• Great Players. They had a fucking field day with getting guys to play with them.. seriously the best of the best. Drumming is awesome.. Steve Gadd, Bernard Purdie, etc, etc, etc...
• Great Production. This stuff sounds amazing. Everything sits exactly where it needs to be. Nothing is over the top. Everything is tasteful and perfectly complements the song. Oh, and when it is occasionally over the top, they pull it off because they're just badasses (or they were really high on something.. or both).
  

I was telling a friend about them.. i've concluded that they're the smoothest white music nerds ever. If you don't know about them, I would suggest getting Royal Scam or Aja. But really, I've only scratched the surface, so I can't offer up the best place to start. Find a comfortable couch, some type of drug, and good luck.