Showbiz Kids : The Steely Dan Story 1972 - 1980 (Special Edition)

There is an audience for the double-disc set Showbiz Kids: The Steely Dan Story 1972-1980, although it may be a small one -- it's a set for listeners who want something a little more extensive than A Decade of Steely Dan or Gold yet don't want to invest in full albums. On that level, it works quite well, since it does have all the chart and radio hits, plus a terrific sampling of classic album tracks from "Only a Fool Would Say That" through "Any Major Dude Will Tell You" to "Time Out of Mind." So Showbiz Kids winds up being useful for neophytes -- although it's hard not to imagine anyone who gets this set, believing that this will be all the Steely Dan they'll ever need, eventually succumbing and buying all the studio albums. If that's the case, at least they'll already have "Here at the Western World" and "FM," and won't have to purchase one of the two multi-disc sets that contain these non-LP songs. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine