Can't Buy a Thrill is an anomaly in the Steely Dan catalog, the one album featuring the group's original lead singer, David Palmer. (Ironically, even here, Palmer sings only two of the album's ten songs solo, as well as a couple more duets with Donald Fagen.) However, the album is equally notable for including one song, "Midnight Cruiser," sung by the Dan's original drummer, Jim Hodder. Hodder (who as it happens also sang the lead on Steely Dan's debut single, "Dallas" — Donald Fagen was uncomfortable in the role of frontman at the beginning of the band's career) is an undistinguished vocalist, which makes him oddly perfect for "Midnight Cruiser," otherwise the most undistinguished song on the entire album. It's not a bad song, really, it's just musically faceless (the melody is highly reminiscent of Runt-era Todd Rundgren, and the production is oddly redolent of the smooth pop/rock of Carole King's Tapestry; good company, but still...) and the lyrics are not among Fagen and Walter Becker's most memorable. The slickly competent but lightweight "Midnight Cruiser" is probably what ABC Records thought they were getting with Steely Dan, which must have made the art-jazz explorations of Countdown to Ecstasy a rude surprise.

A friend of mine has been in the lighting, stage and sound business his entire adult life and he tells me that every self respecting sound stage crew uses Steely Dan for their sound checks.

In days past, the home stereo speakers had to be as big as a chair to get good sound quality.
Steely Dan and Pink Floyd were the two bands that were used on new stereo's to determine how good your stereo sounded.
The sound quality, separation and clarity from a Steely Dan ( & PF) song was unmatched.

Gotta love big ass stereo with Steely Dan