Steely Dan "Aja" [1977]

In an apparent effort to make Eagles' "Hotel California" seem rootsy, New York-transplant session wanks Steely Dan set out to invent a purely synthetic form of coke-headed jazz that inexplicably wound up on the charts throughout the late 70s. When President Carter was talking about the "malaise" in America at the time, he all but name-dropped this album -- a sad, soulless series of laments tackily conceived enough to make the Manhattan Transfer go, "Eww, guys -- yuck!" Rightfully slam this record for long enough and you'll eventually uncover the diehard fans of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, who'll tell you: "Their earlier stuff was way better." First of all, that's bullshit unless you think future Defense Dept. advisor Jeff "Skunk" Baxter was a less techno-nerdly guitar player than whatever chart-reading pinheads play on "Aja," and secondly, this was the album the Dan was always destined to make: an uber-cautionary tale of how not to live life in the 70s, one that made Boz Scaggs appear reasonably functional.