The Royal Scam

1	Kid Charlemagne 4:39
2	The Caves of Altamira 3:33
3	Don't Take Me Alive 4:16
4	Sign in Stranger 4:23
5	The Fez 4:01
6	Green Earrings 4:05
7	Haitian Divorce 5:51
8	Everything You Did 3:55
9	The Royal Scam 6:31

Barnes & Noble

In contrast to their music-making methods -- which usually involved holing up for weeks in a Los Angeles studio with the hottest session players around -- Walter Becker and Donald Fagen's best lyrics for Steely Dan songs focused on the embittered lives of savvy streetwise survivors of urban America. THE ROYAL SCAM, their response to bicentennial mania, offered the angriest and most edgy of these tales: The narrator of "Don't Take Me Alive" is a career criminal on the lam, "The Fez" is the story of a sex fetishist, and the title track takes a sardonic look at the American dream (a stance accented by the cover, which depicts a homeless person at a monument). The music is equally edgy -- with its bleak outlook, grisly tone, and blistering guitar leads, this is an album that disappears down a dark alley and doesn't come back. Martin Johnson

All Music Guide

The Royal Scam is the first Steely Dan record that doesn't exhibit significant musical progress from its predecessor, but that doesn't mean the album is any less interesting. The cynicism that was suppressed on Katy Lied comes roaring to the surface on The Royal Scam -- not only are the lyrics bitter and snide, but the music is terse, broken, and weary. Not so coincidentally, the album is comprised of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen's weakest set of songs since Can't Buy a Thrill. Alternating between mean-spirited bluesy vamps like "Green Earrings" and "The Fez" and jazzy soft rock numbers like "The Caves of Altamira," there's nothing particularly bad on the album, yet there are fewer standouts than before. Nevertheless, the best songs on The Royal Scam, like the sneering "Kid Charlemagne" and "Sign in Stranger," rank as genuine Steely Dan classics. Stephen Thomas Erlewine