Best Of: Then & Now [Import, Original recording remastered]

Steely Dan | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 9, 2000)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import, Original recording remastered
• Label: Mca Int'l
• ASIN: B000005RVN
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #16,217 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #55 in Music > Imports > Classic Rock

Track Listings

1. Reelin' in the Years

2. Rikki Don't Lose That Number

3. Peg

4. FM

5. Hey Nineteen

6. Deacon Blues

7. Black Friday

8. Bodhisattva

9. Do It Again

10. Haitian Divorce

11. My Old School

12. Midnight Cruiser

13. Babylon Sisters

14. Kid Charlemagne

15. Dirty Work

16. Josie

Editorial Reviews

Available at this low price for a limited time! 16 of the duo's greatest hits digitally remastered, including 'FM', 'Do It Again', 'Reelin' In The Years', 'Peg', 'Josie', 'Rikki Don't Lose That Number', 'Deacon Blues', 'Hey Nineteen', 'Black Friday' & 'Bodhisattva'. 1993.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best "Best Of" Compilation I've Yet Seen, December 5, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Best Of: Then & Now (Audio CD)

I bought this CD originally in Hong Kong, and it got stolen back here in the states. This is by far the best compilation of Steely Dan, and has a great history of the group in its liner notes. Thank you, Amazon, for carrying this and making it easy to replace! If anybody has a Steely Dan fan on their Christmas list, by the way, this is the one to get them.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This "Best of" is very similar to "A Decade Of Steely Dan", January 2, 2005

By 

FlashbangBob (Victoria, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Best Of: Then & Now (Audio CD)

This is a great album but, if you're after a greatest hits my recommendation is to buy ASIN: B000002P4R "A Decade Of Steely Dan".

There are three reasons for this. Firstly, the track listing between the two are almost identical. "Then & Now" has a couple more songs but all the main hits are on the "Decade" album.

Secondly the "Decade" album is not an import so it is less than half price and thirdly, "FM" which is my favourite song on the album has a Sax solo whereas on the "Decade" album the version, while otherwise identical has a guitar solo. A minor difference but I don't think the sax solo is as good as the guitar solo. Someone told me once that Larry Carlton played the solo in FM. I don't know if this is true but it certainly sounds like his style.

A great Album but get "Decade" and save a few bucks.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great collection, weird sequence..., November 4, 2002

By 

Curly Q. Link (Somewhere Out There) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Best Of: Then & Now (Audio CD)

Unlike most "Best Of" collections, which tend to highlight a few great songs "padded out" with a bunch of filler tracks, this Steely Dan compilation covering their "golden years" (that is, basically the whole decade of the 1970's) is truly loaded with great material from start to finish. But hey, when the group in question is Steely Dan, whose level of songwriting and musicianship was above and beyond virtually all of the "stadium rock", "smooth pop", and disco with which it shared the radio airwaves of that era, the problem is not which mediocre material to include, but rather, which excellent songs have to be omitted due to the time limitations of one CD. I think the compiler(s) did a very good job for the most part, although personally I think I would have replaced "Black Friday" with "Black Cow". If there were "1/2 stars" available, I would have given this disc 4-and-1/2 stars. The only reason I'd withhold a half star is that some of the sequences are a bit weird, none moreso than at the very beginning: We get off to an energetic start with "Reelin' in the Years", but since it's followed by "Rikki Don't Lose That Number", a fine song which was unfortunately saddled with an all-but-useless Intro of some sort of mumbling "log drums" or marimba that runs 23 seconds, we get a half minute (a long time in pop music terms) of what amounts to "dead air". If you listen while driving in your car, where this Intro barely cuts through at all, you might think there's something wrong with the disc, or your CD player. I suppose that this complaint should really be directed at the band and producer of the original track, but as Steely Dan is usually thought of as a "groove" group producing slick, toe-tapping, jazz-&-funk-inflected rock, the slowpoke Intro should have been cut out, at least for this collection; it kinda kills the pace so early in the album. There are a couple other odd sequences as well---it shows how important this aspect of producing a record can be, something that affects the listener's whole perception of it. That said, it really is a superlative batch of music, and anyway, in today's hi-tech world, you can play with the sequence as you wish, or "randomize" the tracks, which can be cool with this type of collection; just don't try to do that while driving your car---the cover photo shows what happened to those who did.