I’ve largely steered clear of photographic album covers thus far. Most of them feature rather pedestrian pictures of a band trying to look wicked awesome and are of dubious artistic merit. Raeanne Rubenstein‘s Pretzel Logic cover is an exception to that rule. My favorite bit is the sign whereon pretzel is misspelled. It’s an apt visualization of Becker and Fagen’s mordant and sardonic wit. They were snarky before the word existed.

Musically, Pretzel Logic saw Becker and Fagen drop their original band mates in favor of working with killer session musicians. They were predominantly a studio band until reuniting in the mid-1990’s The title track is perhaps my favorite Steely Dan numbah.

Here’s the more pedestrian cover for the single with  Rikki Don’t Lose That Number as the A-side:

Here’s the whole freaking 1974 album: