Editing Countdown to Ecstasy (section)

==Critical reception==
{{Album ratings
| title = Retrospective professional reviews
| rev1 = [[AllMusic]]
| rev1Score = {{Rating|5|5}}<ref name="Erlewine"/>
| rev2 = ''[[Chicago Tribune]]''
| rev2Score = {{Rating|3.5|4}}<ref>{{cite news|last=Kot|first=Greg|author-link=Greg Kot|date=August 16, 1992|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1992-08-16-9203140079-story.html|title=Thrills, Scams and Nightflys|newspaper=[[Chicago Tribune]]|access-date=September 30, 2019}}</ref>
| rev3 = ''[[Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies|Christgau's Record Guide]]''
| rev3Score = A<ref name="CG">{{cite book|last=Christgau|first=Robert|author-link=Robert Christgau|year=1981|title=[[Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies]]|publisher=[[Ticknor & Fields]]|isbn=089919026X|chapter=Consumer Guide '70s: S|chapter-url=https://www.robertchristgau.com/get_chap.php?k=S&bk=70|access-date=March 9, 2019|via=robertchristgau.com}}</ref>
| rev4 = ''[[Encyclopedia of Popular Music]]''
| rev4Score = {{Rating|4|5}}<ref>{{cite book|last=Larkin|first=Colin|author-link=Colin Larkin|title=Encyclopedia of Popular Music|year=2007|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|edition=4th|isbn=978-0195313734|title-link=Encyclopedia of Popular Music}}</ref>
| rev5 = ''[[The Great Rock Discography]]''
| rev5Score = 8/10<ref>{{cite book|last=Strong|first=Martin Charles|author-link=Martin C. Strong|title=The Great Rock Discography|publisher=[[National Academies Press|The National Academies]]|year=2002|isbn=1-84195-312-1|chapter=Steely Dan}}</ref>
| rev6 = ''[[MusicHound|MusicHound Rock]]''
| rev6score = 3/5<ref>{{cite book|editor1-last=Graff|editor1-first=Gary|editor2-last=Durchholz|editor2-first=Daniel|title=MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide|publisher=Visible Ink Press|location=Farmington Hills, MI|year=1999|isbn=1-57859-061-2|chapter=Steely Dan|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781578590612}}</ref>
| rev7 = [[Music Story]]
| rev7Score = {{Rating|4|5}}<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.music-story.com/steely-dan/countdown-to-ecstasy|title=Countdown to Ecstasy|website=[[Music Story]]|language=fr|date=n.d.|access-date=November 21, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091121012314/http://www.music-story.com/steely-dan/countdown-to-ecstasy|archive-date=November 21, 2009|url-status=dead}}</ref>
| rev8 = ''[[Rolling Stone]]''
| rev8Score = {{Rating|5|5}}<ref name="Blashill"/>
| rev9 = ''[[The Rolling Stone Album Guide]]''
| rev9Score = {{Rating|5|5}}{{sfn|Sheffield et al.|2004|p=778–89}}
| rev10 = ''[[Tom Hull (critic)|Tom Hull – on the Web]]''
| rev10Score = A−<ref>{{cite web|last=Hull|first=Tom|author-link=Tom Hull (critic)|date=n.d.|url=http://tomhull.com/ocston/nm/get_gl.php?n=Steely+Dan|title=Grade List: Steely Dan|website=Tom Hull – on the Web|access-date=November 23, 2020}}</ref>
}}

Reviewing the album in August 1973 for ''[[Rolling Stone]]'', David Logan said that, while it might follow a "formula", the songs do not become "redundant or superfluous", and that, though the band's "playing is hardly unique and their singing is occasionally hampered by patently ridiculous lyrics, they exhibit a control of the basic rock format that is refreshing and that bodes well for the group's long-term success."<ref name="Logan">{{cite magazine|last=Logan |first=David |date=August 16, 1973 |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/countdown-to-ecstasy-19730816 |title=Countdown To Ecstasy |magazine=[[Rolling Stone]] |page=54 |location=New York |access-date=April 6, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121227000503/http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/countdown-to-ecstasy-19730816 |archive-date=December 27, 2012 |url-status=live |df=mdy }}</ref> ''[[Billboard (magazine)|Billboard]]'' complimented the "studio effect" of the dual guitar playing and found the "grandiloquent vocal blend" catchy.<ref name="Billboard"/> ''[[Stereo Review]]'' called it a "really excellent album" with "witty and tasteful" arrangements, "winning" performances, "high quality" songs, and a "potent and persuasive" mix of rock, jazz, and pop styles.<ref name="SR">{{cite journal|title=Special Merit|page=94|journal=[[Stereo Review]]|date=November 1973|volume=31|issue=5}}</ref> In ''[[Creem]]'', [[Robert Christgau]] made reference to "studio-perfect licks that crackle and buzz when you listen hard" and "invariably malicious" vocals that back the group's obscure lyrics,<ref name="Creem">{{cite magazine|last=Christgau|first=Robert|author-link=Robert Christgau|date=December 1973|url=http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/cg/crm7312.php|title=The Christgau Consumer Guide|magazine=[[Creem]]|access-date=April 6, 2013}}</ref> and he named ''Countdown to Ecstasy'' the ninth best album of 1973 in his year-end list for ''[[Newsday]]''.<ref>{{cite news|last=Christgau|first=Robert|date=January 13, 1974|url=http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/news/nd740113.php|title=Returning With a Painful Top 30 List|newspaper=[[Newsday]]|access-date=April 6, 2013}}</ref> Tom Hull, in a review published in ''Overdose'' in April 1975, said the album is "perhaps the most representative, certainly the best realized," of Steely Dan's albums, as far as their "clean, almost slick" style is concerned, and called the overall effect "strange, strangely comfortable, queasy almost", and the band "a dangerous group, one that should be watched."<ref name="Hull"/>

In ''[[Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies]]'' (1981), Christgau said that, thanks to Fagen's replacement of Palmer, who Christgau felt did not fit the group, Steely Dan was able to achieve a "deceptively agreeable studio slickness" on the album.<ref name="CG"/> [[Paul Lester]] described the album in an entry in ''The Encyclopedia of Albums'' (1998) as a progression from ''Can't Buy a Thrill'', and wrote that "Becker and Fagen offered cruel critiques of the self-obsessed [[Me decade|'Me' decade]]", while their "blend of [[cool jazz]] and bebop, [[Brill Building]] song craft and rock was unparallelled at the time (only Britain's [[10cc]] were creating such intelligent pop in the early Seventies)."{{sfn|Heatley|Lester|Roberts|1998|p=50}} In his 1999 autobiography ''A Cure for Gravity'', British musician [[Joe Jackson (musician)|Joe Jackson]] described ''Countdown to Ecstasy'' as a musical revelation for him that bridged the gap between "pure [[pop music|pop]]" and his jazz-rock and progressive influences and influenced his subsequent attempts at songwriting.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fQe_eCmmqaUC&pg=PA138|title=A Cure For Gravity: A Musical Pilgrimage|first=Joe|last=Jackson|date=October 9, 2007|publisher=Hachette Books|isbn=9780306817083 |via=Google Books}}</ref>  Pat Blashill wrote in a review in ''Rolling Stone'' in 2003 that the "joy in these excellent songs" and in the band's playing revealed Steely Dan to be "human, not just brainy," "like good stretches of [[the Rolling Stones|the Stones]]' ''[[Exile on Main St.]]''"<ref name="Blashill">{{cite magazine|last=Blashill |first=Pat |date=October 30, 2003 |issue=934 |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/artists/steelydan/albums/album/90998/review/5940553/countdown_to_ecstasy |title=Steely Dan: Countdown To Ecstasy |magazine=Rolling Stone |location=New York |access-date=April 7, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071112074036/http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/steelydan/albums/album/90998/review/5940553/countdown_to_ecstasy |archive-date=November 12, 2007 }}</ref> In ''[[The Rolling Stone Album Guide]]'' (2004), [[Rob Sheffield]] called the album "a thoroughly amazing, hugely influential album" with "cold-blooded L.A. studio rock tricked out with jazz piano and tough guitar."{{sfn|Sheffield et al.|2004|p=778–89}} [[Stephen Thomas Erlewine]] of [[AllMusic]] found ''Countdown to Ecstasy'' to be "riskier" musically than the band's debut album, and called the songs "rich with either musical or lyrical detail that [Steely Dan's] [[Album-oriented rock|album rock]] or [[art rock]] contemporaries couldn't hope to match."<ref name="Erlewine">{{cite web|last=Erlewine|first=Stephen Thomas|author-link=Stephen Thomas Erlewine|url=http://www.allmusic.com/album/countdown-to-ecstasy-mw0000191882|title=Countdown to Ecstasy – Steely Dan|website=[[AllMusic]]|access-date=April 7, 2013}}</ref> Chris Jones of [[BBC Music]] said the ideas on the album are "[[post-modern]]" and "erudite", and asserted that the band was "setting a benchmark that few have ever matched."<ref name="Jones">{{cite web|last=Jones|first=Chris|date=January 4, 2008|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/3pjw|title=Review of Steely Dan – Countdown To Ecstasy|publisher=[[BBC Music]]|access-date=April 7, 2013}}</ref>

In 2000, ''Countdown to Ecstasy'' was voted number 307 in [[Colin Larkin]]'s book ''[[All Time Top 1000 Albums]]''.<ref name="Larkin">{{cite book|title=[[All Time Top 1000 Albums]]|author=Colin Larkin|author-link=Colin Larkin|publisher=[[Virgin Books]]|date=2000|edition=3rd|isbn=0-7535-0493-6|page=127}}</ref> The album was also included in the book ''[[1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die]]''.{{sfn|Dimery|Lydon|2010|p=301}}