I like them quite a bit, but they've always struck me as a band that's too self-consciously esoteric for its own good. I kind of look at them as the musical equivalent of a New Yorker cartoon.
I agree with this 100%. I liked the Yacht Rock version of Donald Fagen, who literally could not produce one word that could be understood by anyone else.
I'm a casual fan of Steely Dan, inasmuch as I like Decade (with the strong exceptions of "Bad Sneakers" and "East St. Louis Toodle-oo") and don't particularly like Two Against Nature, which I somehow acquired.
I like the other bands being discussed here to varying degrees. I make a little fun of John Fogerty for being off-putting, but that has never stopped me from appreciating Creedence.
Unfortunately, my exposure to almost all of these bands (even Queen) came through a sad mid-80s sojourn into classic rock radio - hey, Raleigh only had about three pop/rock stations, then. And WXYC back then was overrated - it's not like all they played was Sonic Youth and Superchunk. They took "eclectic" seriously enough to remind me of Charles R. Martin's later devotion to Ethiopian Groove vinyl and Greek rebetica.
