Cosmic America

On this episode of Cosmic America, we tackle the midway point of Steely Dan's primary studio phase — 1975's Katy Lied. Once described as "an epic bardic saga" on some message board that I read in the late 90's, this album captures the Dan as they transitioned fully from a touring outfit to a pure-studio outfit. The army of session musicians who would come to dominate later albums had started to assemble on this one, and the album ended up hosting some lesser-known but incredibly important songs in the band's canon. Musical cleverness and lyrical obliqueness fully on display throughout this one.Be sure to subscribe to Cosmic America on iTunes, and tweet us with your musical thoughts and review ideas at @doctorgc and @akmccarthy. Thanks for listening.