Can't Buy a Thrill

Can't Buy a Thrill is the debut studio album by American rock band Steely Dan, released by ABC Records in November 1972. It was written by band members Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, and recorded in August 1972 at the Village Recorder in Los Angeles with producer Gary Katz. The album is one of Steely Dan's most stylistically eclectic, encompassing the sounds of soft rock, folk rock, jazz-rock and pop, alongside philosophical, elliptical lyrics.

A commercial success, in the United States Can't Buy a Thrill peaked at number 17 on the Billboard albums chart, bolstered by the popular singles "Do It Again" and "Reelin' In the Years", and was eventually certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. It was also met with positive reviews and has appeared on many retrospective "greatest albums" lists, including Rolling Stone magazine's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" (2003).

Recording
Steely Dan recorded the album in August 1972 at the Village Recorder in Los Angeles. Two songs recorded during the Can't Buy a Thrill sessions were left off the album and released as a single: "Dallas" b/w "Sail the Waterway". This is the only Steely Dan album to include David Palmer as a lead vocalist, having been recruited after Donald Fagen expressed concerns over singing live. Drummer Jim Hodder contributes lead vocals on one song, "Midnite Cruiser" (sometimes spelled "Midnight Cruiser"); he also sang "Dallas". By the time recording of the next album began, the band and producer Gary Katz had convinced Fagen to assume the full lead vocalist role.

Music and lyrics
According to writers Marjorie Galen and Gordon Matthews, Can't Buy a Thrill features an upbeat soft rock style. Music journalist Paul Lester said it incorporates mambo, swing, jazz, and Latin musical elements. Music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine noted that "there are very few of the jazz flourishes that came to distinguish their [later] albums", but added that the first single from the album, "Do It Again", incorporates a tight Latin jazz beat, while the second single, "Reelin' In the Years", features jazzy guitar solos and harmonies. Robert Christgau described "Do It Again" as a toned-down mambo song with "tragic" lyrics about a "compulsive" loser.

"Fire in the Hole", which features "angry, strident piano" by Fagen, takes its title from a phrase used by American soldiers in Vietnam, and alludes to the many students who evaded the draft in the late 1960s and early 1970s (Becker and Fagen included).

Title and packaging
The title of the album is a reference to the opening line of the Bob Dylan song "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry". The album cover features a photomontage by Robert Lockart. It includes an image of a line of prostitutes standing in a red-light area in Rouen, France, waiting for clients, which was chosen because of its relevance to the album title. In the liner notes to a reissue of The Royal Scam (1976), Walter Becker and Donald Fagen jokingly claimed that The Royal Scam possessed "the most hideous album cover of the seventies, bar none (excepting perhaps Can't Buy a Thrill)." The cover was banned in Francisco Franco's Spain and replaced by a photograph of the band playing in concert.

Release
Can't Buy a Thrill was released in the United States by ABC Records in November 1972, and in the United Kingdom by Probe Records in January 1973. The album was released in a two-channel stereo mix, as well as in a four-channel quadraphonic mix.

The album peaked at number 17 on the Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart, and Dunhill Records reissued the album in the U.S. on August 22, 1973. On May 31, 1973, Can't Buy a Thrill was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), recognizing the shipment of 500,000 copies in the U.S.; it was certified Platinum on September 7, 1993, recognizing the shipment of 1,000,000 copies.

Critical reception
Reviewing the album in November 1972 for Rolling Stone, James Isaacs said Can't Buy a Thrill is "distinguished by three top-level cuts and scattered moments of inspiration," but felt the band occasionally sounded "limp". In his review for Creem, Robert Christgau deemed the package "A hit single with a good album attached", and said he found the lyrics "oblique, even philosophical [...] as befit a band named after a dildo in a William Burroughs novel." In Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Christgau expounded on his original praise, writing: "Think of the Dan as the first post-boogie band: the beat swings more than it blasts or blisters, the chord changes defy our primitive subconscious expectations, and the lyrics underline their own difficulty—as well as the difficulty of the reality to which they refer—with arbitrary personal allusions, most of which are ruses."

In a retrospective review for BBC Music, Paul Lester said the album is so "fully-formed [...] that you would scarcely believe that it's their debut", and contains "tightly constructed songs with dazzling hooks, clever, cryptic lyrics, and vocals that offer teasing critiques for those that want them." Writing for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine said the songs on the album "subvert traditional conventions" and are "tightly constructed, with interlocking chords and gracefully interwoven melodies, buoyed by clever, cryptic lyrics", but criticized the contributions of vocalist David Palmer, writing that he "oversings the handful of tracks where he takes the lead", which caused Becker and Fagen to temper "their wildest impulses with mainstream pop techniques." In a review included in The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), Rob Sheffield was somewhat less impressed by the album, calling it "mellow folk rock" that was "softened" by Palmer, who "sounds like he's nervous about where his wallet is".

Can't Buy a Thrill has appeared on retrospective "greatest albums" lists. In 2000, it was voted number 207 in Colin Larkin's book All Time Top 1000 Albums. In 2003, it was ranked number 238 on Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time"; it was number 240 on the 2012 update of the list, and number 168 on the 2020 version. The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Personnel

 * Steely Dan
 * Jeff "Skunk" Baxter – guitar, pedal steel guitar, spoken Spanish (the end of track 5)
 * Walter Becker – electric bass guitar, co-lead vocals (10), backing vocals
 * Denny Dias – guitar, electric sitar
 * Donald Fagen – piano, electric piano, plastic organ (YC-30), lead vocals (all except 2,4,8), backing vocals
 * Jim Hodder – drums, percussion, lead vocals (4), backing vocals
 * David Palmer – lead vocals (2,8), co-lead vocals (5,9,10), backing vocals


 * Additional musicians
 * Elliott Randall – lead guitar (3,6)
 * Victor Feldman – percussion
 * Jerome Richardson – tenor saxophone (2)
 * Snooky Young – flugelhorn (2)
 * Clydie King, Sherlie Matthews, Venetta Fields – backing vocals (3,8)


 * Production
 * Gary Katz – producer
 * Roger Nichols – engineer
 * Tim Weston – assistant engineer
 * Doug Sax – mastering engineer
 * Robert Lockart – cover design
 * Tristan Fabriani (Walter Becker & Donald Fagen) – liner notes


 * Reissue
 * Walter Becker, Donald Fagen – producers
 * Roger Nichols – remastering engineer
 * Vartan – art direction
 * Red Herring Design/NYC – design
 * Daniel Levitin – consultant