Reception
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | |
| BBC Music | (positive) |
| Robert Christgau | A |
| Rolling Stone | |
Countdown to Ecstasy was well regarded as a sophomore effort coming in higher by many reviewers than its predecessor. A reviewer in Rolling Stone stated "he Steelies strike gold and really boogie". Allmusic praised the album for being riskier and more sophisticated than their debut, commenting, "Countdown to Ecstasy is the only time Steely Dan played it relatively straight, and its eight songs are rich with either musical or lyrical detail that their album rock or art rock contemporaries couldn't hope to match."
In his autobiography "A Cure for Gravity" Joe Jackson talks about the importance of the album on his eventual music career. "It's probably significant that my favorite songwriters now were Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan. Their album Countdown to Ecstasy was a revelation and certainly one of the most influential albums of my life. It was a bridge between my early jazz rock or progressive tastes and pure pop. Suddenly it seemed possible to be hip and smart and sophisticated with a high level of musicianship while working in the accessible pop format. Some of the early songs I was writing were heavily influenced by Steely Dan but of course without quite managing Becker and Fagen's worldy sophistication. "
Read more about this topic: Countdown To Ecstasy
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“Aesthetic emotion puts man in a state favorable to the reception of erotic emotion.... Art is the accomplice of love. Take love away and there is no longer art.”
—Rémy De Gourmont (1858–1915)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)