Steely Dan was an American rock band formed in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, in 1971 by Walter Becker (guitars, bass, backing vocals) and Donald Fagen (keyboards, lead vocals). Originally having a traditional band lineup, Becker and Fagen chose to stop performing live by the end of 1974 and continued Steely Dan as a studio-only duo, using a revolving cast of session musicians. Rolling Stone magazine named them "the perfect musical antiheroes for the seventies".
Becker and Fagen played together in a variety of bands from their time together studying at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson. They later moved to Los Angeles, gathered a band of musicians and began recording music. Their debut album, Can't Buy a Thrill (1972), established a template for their career, blending elements of rock, jazz, Latin music, R&B, and blues with sophisticated studio production and cryptic, irony-infused lyrics. The band enjoyed critical and commercial success with seven studio albums, peaking with their top-selling album Aja, released in 1977.
Steely Dan disbanded in 1981. Becker and Fagen worked sporadically on solo projects through the 1980s, although a cult following remained devoted to the group's work. After reuniting in 1993, Steely Dan toured steadily and released two albums of new material, the first of which, Two Against Nature (2000), earned a Grammy Award for Album of the Year at the 43rd Grammy Awards. Their most recent album of new studio material is 2003's Everything Must Go, though they have continued to release compilations, box sets and live albums on a regular basis. After Becker's death in 2017, Fagen reluctantly continued the group with himself as the sole official member until 2026.
Steely Dan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001 and has sold more than 40 million records worldwide. VH1 ranked Steely Dan at No. 82 on their list of the "100 Greatest Musical Artists of All Time" in 2010, and Rolling Stone ranked them No. 15 on its list of the "20 Greatest Duos of All Time" in 2015.
