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*[[pop rock]]
*[[jazz]]
*[[
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| label = [[ABC Records|ABC]]
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'''''Aja''''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|eɪ|ʒ|ə}}, pronounced "[[Asia]]") is the sixth [[studio album]] by the American
The album peaked at number three on the [[Billboard 200|''Billboard'' Top LPs & Tape]] chart, and number five on the [[UK Albums Chart]], ultimately becoming Steely Dan's most commercially successful release. It spawned the hit singles "[[Peg (song)|Peg]]", "[[Deacon Blues]]", and "[[Josie (Steely Dan song)|Josie]]". At the [[20th Annual Grammy Awards]], ''Aja'' won [[Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical|Best Engineered Recording – Non-Classical]], and was nominated for [[Grammy Award for Album of the Year|Album of the Year]] and [[Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals|Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals]]. It has appeared on many retrospective "greatest albums" lists, with critics and [[audiophile]]s applauding the album's high production quality. In 2010, the album was added to the [[National Recording Registry]] by [[Library of Congress]] for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
==Recording==
The album was produced by Steely Dan's longtime producer [[Gary Katz]],<ref name="Crowe">{{cite magazine | last=Crowe | first=Cameron | date=December 29, 1977 | title=Steely Dan Springs Back: The Second Coming | magazine=Rolling Stone | publisher=Straight Arrow Publishers, Inc. | location=New York City | issue=#255 | page=11 | url=http://www.theuncool.com/journalism/rs255-steely-dan/ | access-date=October 27, 2011}}</ref>
==Title and packaging==
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''Aja'' was released by [[ABC Records]]<ref name="mojo">{{cite book|author=Anon.|title=[[The Mojo Collection]]|edition=4th|publisher=[[Canongate Books]]|year=2007|isbn=978-1-84767-643-6|chapter=Steely Dan - Aja|editor1-first=Jim|editor1-last=Irvin|editor1-link=Jim Irvin|editor2-first=Colin|editor2-last=McLear|page=389}}</ref> on September 23, 1977.<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Morris|first=Chris|date=September 22, 2017|url=https://variety.com/2017/music/opinion/steely-dan-aja-40th-anniversary-masterpiece-1202564168/amp/|title='Aja' at 40: Why Steely Dan's Audiophile Masterpiece Is Also Kind of Punk|magazine=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]|accessdate=April 24, 2021}}</ref> In anticipation of the release, Katz urged the relatively private Fagen and Becker to raise their public profile, and arranged a meeting with [[Irving Azoff]] to discuss employing him as their manager. Fagen initially had reservations, saying: "We were ready to go blissfully through life without a manager."<ref name="Crowe"/>
With Azoff's connections with record stores and the album being offered at a discounted price, ''Aja'' became, according to [[Cameron Crowe]] in the December 1977 issue of ''[[Rolling Stone]]'', "one of the season's hottest albums and by far Steely Dan's fastest-selling ever."<ref name="Crowe"/> It reached the top five of the [[Billboard 200|''Billboard'' Top LPs & Tape]] chart within three weeks of its release,<ref name="billboard"/> and it ultimately peaked at number three, becoming the band's highest-charting album in the United States. The album was also the group's highest-charting album in the UK, reaching number five on the [[UK Albums Chart]].<ref name="mojo"/> According to ''[[Billboard (magazine)|Billboard]]'', ''Aja'' was Steely Dan's biggest hit and was one of the first albums to be
Attempts to make a [[5.1 surround sound|surround-sound]] mix of the album for a release in the late 1990s were scrapped when it was discovered that the [[multitrack recording|multitrack]] masters for both "Black Cow" and the title track were missing. [[Universal Music]] canceled plans to release a multichannel [[Super Audio CD|SACD]] version of the album for the same reason. In the liner notes for the 1999 remastered reissue of the album, Fagen and Becker offered a $600 reward for the missing masters or any information that
==Reception and legacy==
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|rev1score = {{Rating|4.5|5}}<ref>{{cite web|last=Erlewine|first=Stephen Thomas|author-link=Stephen Thomas Erlewine|url=http://www.allmusic.com/album/aja-mw0000191964|title=Aja – Steely Dan|publisher=[[AllMusic]]|access-date=August 14, 2015}}</ref>
|rev2 = ''[[Chicago Tribune]]''
|rev2Score = {{Rating|2.5|4}}<ref name="Kot">{{cite news|last=Kot|first=Greg|author-link=Greg Kot|date=August 16, 1992|url=
|rev3 = ''[[Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies|Christgau's Record Guide]]''
|rev3Score = B+<ref name="CG">{{cite book|last=Christgau|first=Robert|author-link=Robert Christgau|year=1981|title=Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies|publisher=[[Ticknor & Fields]]|isbn=089919026X|chapter=Consumer Guide '70s: S|chapter-url=https://www.robertchristgau.com/get_chap.php?k=S&bk=70|access-date=March 9, 2019|via=robertchristgau.com|title-link=Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies}}</ref>
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Reviewing the album in 1977 for ''[[Rolling Stone]]'', Michael Duffy said that "the conceptual framework of [Steely Dan's] music has shifted from the pretext of rock & roll toward a smoother, awesomely clean and calculated mutation of various rock, pop and jazz idioms", while their lyrics "remain as pleasantly obtuse and cynical as ever". He added that the duo's "extreme intellectual self-consciousness", though it might be starting to show its limitations with this album, "may be precisely the quality that makes Walter Becker and Donald Fagen the perfect musical antiheroes for the Seventies."<ref name="RS">{{cite magazine|last=Duffy|first=Michael|date=December 1, 1977|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/aja-19771201|title=Steely Dan: Aja|magazine=[[Rolling Stone]]|location=New York|access-date=April 29, 2013}}</ref> [[Robert Christgau]] of ''[[The Village Voice]]'' wrote that he "hated this record for quite a while before I realized that, unlike ''[[The Royal Scam]]'', it was stretching me some", and noted that he was "grateful to find Fagen and Becker's collegiate cynicism in decline", but worried that a preference for longer, more sophisticated songs "could turn into their fatal flaw".<ref name="Christgau">{{cite news|last=Christgau|first=Robert|author-link=Robert Christgau|date=October 31, 1977|url=http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/cg/cgv11-77.php|title=Christgau's Consumer Guide|newspaper=[[The Village Voice]]|location=New York|access-date=April 29, 2013}}</ref> [[Greg Kot]] was also lukewarm toward the band's stylistic departure, later writing in the ''[[Chicago Tribune]]'': "The clinical coldness first evidenced on ''The Royal Scam'' is perfected here. Longer, more languid songs replace the acerbic pithiness of old."<ref name="Kot"/> Barry Walters was more receptive in a retrospective review for ''Rolling Stone'', saying: "rock has always excelled at embodying adolescent ache. But it's rare when rock captures the complications of adult sorrows almost purely with its sound."<ref name="RS2"/>
Jazz historian Ted Gioia has cited ''Aja'' as an example of Steely Dan "proving that pop-rock could equally benefit from a healthy dose of jazz" during their original tenure, which coincided with a period when rock musicians were frequently experimenting with jazz idioms and techniques.<ref>{{cite book|page=332|last=Gioia|first=Ted|year=2011|title=The History of Jazz|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|isbn=9780199831876}}</ref> [[Amanda Petrusich]] wrote in ''[[Pitchfork (website)|Pitchfork]]'' that the album is "as much a jazz record as a pop one",<ref name="p4k"/> while [[Ben Ratliff]] from ''[[The New York Times]]'' said it "created a new standard for the relationship between jazz and rock, one that was basically irreproducible, by Steely Dan or anyone else [
The album has been cited by music journalists as one of the best test recordings for [[audiophiles]], due to its high production standards.<ref>{{cite web|title = The 30 best hi-fi audiophile albums ever {{!}} Tech Features {{!}} Stuff|url = http://www.stuff.tv/features/30-essential-albums-audiophiles/outkast-speakerboxxxthe-love-below-2003|website = www.stuff.tv|access-date = November 8, 2015|archive-date = July 13, 2016|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160713085104/http://www.stuff.tv/features/30-essential-albums-audiophiles/outkast-speakerboxxxthe-love-below-2003|url-status = dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title = What Are the Top 10 Digital Tracks for Testing Speakers? – A Journal of Musical Things|url = http://ajournalofmusicalthings.com/what-are-the-top-10-digital-tracks-for-testing-speakers/|website = A Journal of Musical Things| date=June 10, 2013 |access-date = November 8, 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title = Vinyl Me, Please {{!}} 52 Essential Albums to Own on Vinyl (Add Your Own) «|url = http://vinylmeplease.com/52-best-albums-to-own-on-vinyl/|website = vinylmeplease.com|access-date = November 8, 2015|archive-date = November 17, 2019|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20191117030848/http://www.vinylmeplease.com/52-best-albums-to-own-on-vinyl/|url-status = dead}}</ref> Walters noted in his review that "the album's surreal sonic perfection, its melodic and harmonic complexity - music so technically demanding its creators had to call in A-list session players to realize the sounds they heard in their heads but could not play, even on the instruments they had mastered."<ref name="RS2"/> Reviewing ''Aja''{{'}}s 2007 all-[[analog recording|analog]] LP reissue, Ken Kessler of the ''[[Hi-Fi News & Record Review]]'' gave top marks to both the recording and performance qualities, and called the album "sublime jazz-rock that hasn't aged at all - unless you consider 'intelligence' passe - it is everything you expected the painfully hip/cool Becker and Fagen to deliver."<ref name="KK">{{cite magazine|magazine=[[Hi-Fi News & Record Review]]|last=Kessler|first=Ken|page=83|title=Music Reviews|date=March 2008}}</ref>
===Accolades===
''Aja'' has appeared on retrospective "greatest albums" lists. In 1991, France's ''[[Rock & Folk]]'' included it on a list of the 250 best albums released since 1966, when the magazine began publication.{{CN|date=December 2023}} In 1999, the album was ranked number 59 on the national Israeli newspaper ''[[Yedioth Ahronoth]]''{{'}}s "Top 99 Albums of All Time" list.{{CN|date=December 2023}} In 2000, ''Aja'' was voted number 118 in the third edition of [[Colin Larkin]]'s book ''[[All Time Top 1000 Albums]]'', where the author noted its "brand of jazz-influenced [[blue-eyed soul|white soul]]".<ref name="Larkin">{{cite book|title=All Time Top 1000 Albums|author=Colin Larkin|publisher=[[Virgin Books]]|date=2000|edition=3rd|isbn=0-7535-0493-6|page=80|title-link=All Time Top 1000 Albums|author-link=Colin Larkin}}</ref> In 2003, the album was inducted into the [[Grammy Hall of Fame]] and ranked number 145 on ''[[Rolling Stone]]''{{'}}s list of the "[[Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time|500 Greatest Albums of All Time]]";<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.grammy.org/recording-academy/awards/hall-of-fame#a |title=GRAMMY Hall Of Fame |publisher=grammy.org |access-date=2017-05-24}}</ref> it maintained the same spot on the 2012 update of the list,<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-156826/steely-dan-aja-163861/|year=2012| title=500 Greatest Albums of All Time Rolling Stone's definitive list of the 500 greatest albums of all time| publisher=[[Rolling Stone]]| access-date= September 18, 2019}}</ref> and rose to number 63 on the 2020 version. In 2006, ''Aja'' was included in the book ''[[1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die]]''.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Robert Dimery|author2=Michael Lydon|title=1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: Revised and Updated Edition|date=7 February 2006|publisher=Universe|isbn=0-7893-1371-5}}</ref> In 2010, the album was recognized by the [[Library of Congress]] as being "culturally, historically, or
The singer [[Bilal (American singer)|Bilal]] listed ''Aja'' among his top-25 favorite albums, explaining that "It's a great body of work. It seems very thought out from beginning to end, every song just had a certain vibe. The songwriting to the sound and the look of the album, the whole package was just very well thought out."<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Simmons|first=Ted|date=February 26, 2013|url=https://www.complex.com/music/2013/02/bilals-25-favorite-albums/the-velvet-underground-the-velvet-underground-and|title=Bilal's 25 Favorite Albums|magazine=[[Complex (magazine)|Complex]]|access-date=August 28, 2020}}</ref>
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In 1999, ''Aja'' was the topic of an episode of the British documentary series ''[[Classic Albums]]''. The episode features a song-by-song study of the album (except for "I Got the News", which is played during the closing credits), as well as interviews with, among others, Steely Dan co-founders [[Walter Becker]] and [[Donald Fagen]], and new, live-in-studio versions of songs from the album, with a band made up of [[Bernard Purdie]], [[Chuck Rainey]], [[Paul Griffin (musician)|Paul Griffin]], who all played on ''Aja'', and with their new guitar player [[Jon Herington]]. Becker and Fagen also play back several of the rejected guitar solos for "[[Peg (song)|Peg]]", which were recorded before [[Jay Graydon]] produced the take used for the album.
Discussing the sound of the album, [[Andy Gill]] says: "Jazz-rock was a fundamental part of the 70s musical landscape [
===Yacht rock===
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In retrospective appraisals, ''Aja'' has been discussed by music journalists as an important release in the development of [[yacht rock]]. In an article for ''[[Spin (magazine)|Spin]]'' in 2009, [[Chuck Eddy]] listed it among the genre's eight essential albums.<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Eddy|first=Chuck|date=January 1, 2009|url=https://www.spin.com/2009/01/yacht-rock/|title=8 Essential Yacht Rock Albums|magazine=[[Spin (magazine)|Spin]]|access-date=June 8, 2020}}</ref> Writing for ''uDiscoverMusic'' in 2019, Paul Sexton said that, with the album, Steely Dan "announced their ever-greater exploration of jazz influences", which would lead to "their yacht-rock masterpiece": 1980's ''[[Gaucho (album)|Gaucho]]''.<ref>{{cite web|last=Sexton|first=Paul|date=September 17, 2019|url=https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/yacht-rock-history/|title=Yacht Rock: A Boatload Of Guilty Pleasures|magazine=uDiscoverMusic|access-date=October 31, 2019}}</ref> Patrick Hosken of [[MTV News]] said that both ''Aja'' and ''Gaucho'' show how "great yacht rock is also more musically ambitious than it might seem, tying [[blue-eyed soul]] and jazz to funk and R&B".<ref>{{cite news|last=Hosken|first=Patrick|date=February 7, 2017|url=http://www.mtv.com/news/2979002/thundercat-yacht-rock-revival-2017/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170207231027/http://www.mtv.com/news/2979002/thundercat-yacht-rock-revival-2017/|url-status=dead|archive-date=February 7, 2017|title=Are We in the Middle of a Yacht-Rock Revival|work=[[MTV News]]|access-date=October 31, 2019}}</ref> ''Aja'' was included in ''Vinyl Me, Please'' magazine's list of "The 10 Best Yacht Rock Albums to Own on Vinyl", with an accompanying essay that said: "Steely Dan's importance to yacht rock can't be overstated. [
==Track listing==
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#"Black Cow"
#*[[Donald Fagen]] – lead vocals, [[synthesizer]]
#*[[Paul Humphrey (American musician)|Paul Humphrey]] – drums
#*[[Chuck Rainey]] – bass guitar
#*[[Victor Feldman]] – [[Rhodes piano|Fender Rhodes piano]]
#*[[Joe Sample]] – [[clavinet]]
#*[[Larry Carlton]] – guitar
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#*Chuck Rainey – bass guitar
#*[[Larry Carlton]], [[Walter Becker]], [[Denny Dias]] – guitars
#*Joe Sample – Fender Rhodes piano
#*[[Michael Omartian]] – piano
#*Victor Feldman – percussion, [[marimba]]
#*[[Wayne Shorter]] – tenor saxophone
#*[[Timothy B. Schmit]] – backing vocals
#"[[Deacon Blues]]"
#*Donald Fagen – lead vocals, synthesizer
#*[[Bernard Purdie]] – drums
#*Walter Becker – bass guitar
#*[[Larry Carlton]], [[Lee Ritenour]] – guitars
#*Victor Feldman – Fender Rhodes piano
#*[[Pete Christlieb]] – tenor saxophone
#*Clydie King, Sherlie Matthews, Venetta Fields – backing vocals
#*[[Dean Parks]]
{{col-2}}
'''Side B'''
#
#*Donald Fagen – lead vocals
#*[[Rick Marotta]] – drums
#*Chuck Rainey – bass guitar
#*[[Paul Griffin (musician)|Paul Griffin]] – Fender Rhodes piano, backing vocals
#*[[Don Grolnick]] – [[clavinet]]
#*[[Steve Khan]] – guitar
#*[[Jay Graydon]] – guitar solo
#*Victor Feldman,
#*Tom Scott – [[Lyricon]]
#*[[Michael McDonald (musician)|Michael McDonald]] – backing vocals
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#*Walter Becker, [[Larry Carlton]] – guitar solos
#*Michael McDonald, Clydie King, Venetta Fields, Sherlie Matthews, Rebecca Louis – backing vocals
#"[[Josie (Steely Dan song)|Josie]]"
#*Donald Fagen – lead vocals, synthesizers, backing vocals
#*[[Jim Keltner]] – drums, percussion
#*Chuck Rainey – bass guitar
#*Victor Feldman – Fender Rhodes piano
#*[[Larry Carlton]], Dean Parks – guitars
#*Walter Becker – guitar solo
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==Further reading==
* {{cite book|title=A Brief History of Album Covers|first=Jason|last=Draper|publisher=Flame Tree Publishing|location=London|year=2008|pages=168–169|isbn=9781847862112|oclc=227198538}}
* {{cite web|url=http://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/aja--FINAL.pdf|title='Aja'—Steely Dan (1977)|publisher=[[Library of Congress]]|last=Sweet|first=Brian|year=2010 | quote = Essay accompanying the album's addition to the [[National Recording Registry]]}}
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