Album · Steely Dan
Aja by Steely Dan
Aja is an album by Steely Dan, released in 1977. 5 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 80 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Deacon Blues”, on 31 lists with a best position of #38.
Aja, Steely Dan's sixth album, came out on ABC on September 23, 1977, and it's the sound of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen chasing perfection with a stopwatch and a bottomless phone book of session players. Nearly 40 musicians passed through, Gary Katz produced as he had on every Dan record before it, and the compositions stretched longer and more intricate, with jazz fusion changes folded into sleek, slippery grooves.
It's cool on the surface and sly underneath. "Peg", "Deacon Blues" and "Josie" were the hit singles, while the title track has fared best on the countdowns. The album climbed to number three in the US and five in the UK, became the band's best-selling record, and won the Grammy for Best Engineered Recording, a fair verdict on how immaculate it sounds. In 2010 the Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from Aja on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Deacon Blues | 31 | #38 | – | 1996–2026 | |
| 2 | Aja | 21 | #7 | – | 1991–2026 | |
| 3 | Peg | 13 | #101 | – | 2002–2026 | |
| 4 | Black Cow | 6 | #39 | – | 1997–2026 | |
| 5 | Josie | 8 | #413 | – | 1997–2022 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.