The Royal Scam

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The Royal Scam
The Royal Scam cover
Studio album by Steely Dan
Released May, 1976
Recorded November 1975-March 1976
Genre Rock
Length 41:11
Label ABC Records
Producer Gary Katz
Professional reviews
Steely Dan chronology
Katy Lied
(1975)		 The Royal Scam
(1976)		 Aja
(1977)

The Royal Scam is an album by jazz rock group Steely Dan, originally released in 1976. The album went gold and peaked at #15 on the charts. The Royal Scam features more prominent guitar than other Steely Dan albums. Guitarists on the recording include Walter Becker, Denny Dias, Larry Carlton, Elliott Randall and Dean Parks.

With irony-laden verses about drug dealers, safe sex, and hardships faced by immigrants, The Royal Scam is arguably Steely Dan at their most cynical. The mood of the album stands in contrast with the band's mellower and hugely successful follow-up, Aja.

The album cover, which shows a well-dressed, possibly homeless man sleeping underneath (or perhaps dreaming of) mutating skyscrapers, is a satirical take on the American Dream. The drawing and painting of the skyscrapers morphed with heads of snake, bear, wolf, alligator, etc. was considered dark, eerie, gothic, and very much ahead of its time. The cover was designed by Larry Zox, and at least a portion was originally created for a Van Morrison album from 1974-75 that was never released. In the liner notes for the 1999 remaster of the album, Fagen and Becker claim it to be "the most hideous album cover of the seventies, bar none (excepting perhaps Can't Buy A Thrill)."

In common with other Steely Dan albums, The Royal Scam is littered with cryptic allusions to people and events both real and fictional. In a BBC interview in 2000[1], Becker revealed that Kid Charlemagne is loosely based on Augustus Owsley Stanley, the notorious drug "chef" who created hallucinogenic compounds for, among others, Jim Morrison of The Doors[2], the Grateful Dead, and The Beatles.

Contents

[edit] Track listing

All songs by Becker and Fagen, except where noted

  1. "Kid Charlemagne" – 4:38
  2. "The Caves of Altamira" – 3:33[1]
  3. "Don't Take Me Alive" – 4:16
  4. "Sign in Stranger" – 4:23
  5. "The Fez" (Becker, Fagen, Paul Griffin) – 4:01
  6. "Green Earrings" – 4:05
  7. "Haitian Divorce" – 5:51
  8. "Everything You Did" – 3:55
  9. "The Royal Scam" – 6:30

[edit] Personnel

[edit] Production

  • Producer: Gary Katz
  • Engineer: Roger Nichols
  • Mixdown engineer: Barney Perkins
  • Sound Consultant: Dinky Dawson
  • Horn arrangements: Walter Becker, Donald Fagen, Chuck Findley
  • Art direction: Ed Caraeff
  • Cover art: Zox
  • Typography: Tom Nikosey

[edit] Charts

Album

Year Chart Position
1976 US Albums 15
1976 UK Albums 11

Pop Singles

Year Single Label & number Chart & position
1976 "Kid Charlemagne" (B-side: "Green Earrings") ABC 12195 U.S. 82
1976 "The Fez" (B-side: "Sign In Stranger") ABC 12222 U.S. 59
1976 "Haitian Divorce" (B-side: "Sign In Stranger") ABC 4152 (UK release) U.K. 17[2]

[edit] References

  1. ^ The lyrics, written in first person on the theme of art, follow in typically abstruse fashion the story of a young boy who would avoid society by entering a cave and admiring cave paintings on its walls
  2. ^ the highest UK chart position for a Steely Dan single

[edit] External links

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Steely Dan
Walter Becker • Donald Fagen
Jeff "Skunk" Baxter • Denny Dias • Jim Hodder • Michael McDonald • David Palmer
Studio albums
Also featured on
Live albums
Compilations
Singles
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