Steely Dan

Steely Dan is an American rock band founded in 1971 in New York by Walter Becker (guitars, bass, backing vocals) and Donald Fagen (keyboards, lead vocals). 

Initially the band had a stable lineup, but in 1974 Becker and Fagen retired from live performances to become a studio-only band, opting to record with a revolving cast of session musicians. Rolling Stone has called them "the perfect musical antiheroes for the seventies".

Becker and Fagen played together in a variety of bands from their time together studying at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. They later moved to Los Angeles, gathered a band of musicians, and began recording albums. Their first, Can't Buy a Thrill (1972), established a template for their career, blending elements of rock, jazz, Latin music, R&B, blues, and sophisticated studio production with cryptic and ironic lyrics. The band enjoyed critical and commercial success through seven studio albums, peaking with their top-selling album Aja, released in 1977.

After Steely Dan disbanded in 1981, Becker and Fagen worked sporadically on solo projects through the 1980s, though a cult following remained devoted to the group's work.