Steely Dan got labelled as “dadrock” by Washington Post journalist Geoff Edgers:
Coachella is dead, and Steely Dan killed it: Remembering the day other music fests died
Donald wrote a short reply in the tour diary he writes for rollingstone.com:
We get this a lot. Actually, Dadrock would be more accurately represented by groups who peaked in the Nineties like Nirvana, Guns N’ Roses and Public Enemy. Of course, this kind of obtuse thinking is driven by tabloid journalism and America’s obsession with novelty. Not to make a comparison, but is Charlie Parker any less relevant today than in 1948? Ellington? Bob Dylan? Or, for that matter, Bach? The devices of art — the chord progressions, the melodic patterns, etc. — might be characteristic of their time, but good music is timeless.
True. Musicians are always right.