Today’s classic Yacht Rock song of the day is “FM (No Static at All)” by those Yacht Rock stalwarts known as Steely Dan. Now, the Dan weren’t known as Yacht Rock at the time (no one was; the genre wouldn’t be identified and named for more than two decades), and they’re certainly not at all like the vapid soft rock noodlings you hear from true Yacht Rockers like Christopher Cross and Michael McDonald (by this point in their career, the Dan was more smooth jazz-like), but the die hard Yacht Rock followers put them in the same boat as the others, so there you have it. (For what it’s worth, the old Yacht or Nacht? website gave “FM” an 93.75 Yachtski score, which is good enough to hit the Top 15 Yacht Rock songs of all time, right in between two Christopher Cross numbers—”All Right” and “Ride Like the Wind.”)
“FM” was written for the movie of the same name; it didn’t appear on any Dan album proper, although it later made its way onto most of their greatest hits compilations. If it were to be on an album, it probably would have been on Aja, as it was recorded during the same sessions in 1977. The solo track wasn’t released until May of 1978, however, to coincide with the release of the movie. It peaked at #22 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The song “FM” was arguably the best thing about the movie FM, which was kind of a stinker. The 1978 film was about the inner workings of a—surprise!—FM radio station. It was supposed to be one of those slice of life comedy/dramas that were all the rage at the time, but it just fell flat, despite the efforts of folks like Cleavon Little, Martin Mull, Cassie Yates, and Eileen Brennan. Moviegoers avoided it in droves and critics didn’t like it much better. Janet Maslin of The New York Times said that the movie “turns into a preposterously self-serving variation on 1960s’ themes.” Gene Siskel, half of Siskel & Ebert and movie critic of the Chicago Tribune, gave FM just 1.5 stars and noted that the film’s “miserable deejays… do their best to make you want to switch stations.”
The one thing everybody agreed on is that the soundtrack was terrific and that “FM’ was the best song on the soundtrack. Other tunes featured in the movie and on the soundtrack included Bob Seger’s “Night Moves,” the Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like an Eagle,” Boz Skaggs’ “Lido Shuffle,” Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” and other tunes by 70’s FM radio regulars such as Linda Ronstadt, Eagles, Foreigner, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, and the Doobie Brothers. It’s like a K-Tel who’s who of the ’70s FM band.
The tune, “FM (No Static at All),” fit right in with other late-period Steely Dan tunes. Donald Fagen said they got the request from the movie’s producers to write a song about FM radio and that the song came pretty quick, taking only a day or two to write. Unlike most Dan songs of that era, Fagen and compatriot Walter Becker played most of the instruments themselves instead of calling in a small army of studio musicians. The only outsiders on the track were drummer Jeff Porcaro, saxophonist Pete Christlieb (who also played the sax solo on “Deacon Blues”), and the Eagles’ Timothy B. Schmidt, Glenn Frey, and Don Henley on background vocals. Dan regular Roger Nichols worked the soundboard—and won a Grammy Award for Best Engineered Recording, Non-Classical.
Fagan had this to say about the track—and the movie—three decades later:
“The song was a hit, but I think we should have seen the movie before we committed ourselves. As you know, it wasn’t a very successful movie.”
So maybe “FM” would’ve been a bigger hit had FM been a better movie. We’ll never know. All I know is that it’s been adopted by the Yacht Rock crew and thus has a renewed audience today.
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