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The band's music is characterized by complex jazz-influenced structures and harmonies played by Becker and Fagen along with a revolving cast of rock and pop studio musicians.

Steely Dan's " cerebral, wry and eccentric " lyrics, often filled with sharp sarcasm, touch upon such themes as drugs, love affairs, and crime.

The pair is well known for their near-obsessive perfectionism in the recording studio, the most extreme example being that Becker and Fagen used at least 42 different studio musicians, 11 engineers, and took over a year to record the tracks that resulted in 1980's Gaucho — an album that contains only seven songs.