“He would often arrive at sessions with two banners, which he placed either side of his kit while recording, reading ‘You done hired the hit-maker’”: From the Purdie shuffle to its extended jazz chords - analysing Steely Dan's Babylon Sisters

Steely Dan.

When it was released on 21st November 1980, Steely Dan’s seventh studio album Gaucho was reported to be the most expensive album ever recorded. Over a two-year period, the band's fastidious co-leads, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, pushed perfection to its very limit, with a revolving door studio policy that resulted in the absolute elite of the American musical fraternity being called upon to record each song, before the next set of equally masterful musicians turned up the next day to do it all again… and again…and again!

There were some major bumps in the road on a technical level during the process though. Gaucho was released as a seven-track album, with several additional tracks being dropped along the way.