BY THE TIME November 1980’s rolled around, Steely Dan were more than ready to close up shop and take a self-imposed two-decade hiatus. Indeed, ’s sparkly veneer was a fitting then-final coating on the acclaimed jazz-leaning but genre-defying band’s first decade, fully encapsulating the dark-humored observational worldview of its principal creators—bassist/guitarist Walter Becker and keyboardist/vocalist Donald Fagen—to a literal T.
