A jazz-rock composition of bass, guitar and piano, its lyrics criticize the album-oriented rock format of many FM radio stations at that time, in contrast to the film's celebration of the medium.

[5] At the time of its release, Aja was enjoying critical and commercial success, leading some listeners to incorrectly assume that "FM" was also on that album.

It was the first time Becker and Fagen had written music for a film since 1971's You've Got to Walk It Like You Talk It or You'll Lose That Beat, a year before Steely Dan's debut album.

Donald Fagen told American Songwriter in 2013 that he and Becker were in California finishing up Aja when they were called to develop a song for a film soundtrack.

Jazz musician Pete Christlieb, who also featured on the band's previous single, "Deacon Blues", supplied the tenor saxophone solo.

[9] Timothy B. Schmit, who had recently left Poco, was joined by his new bandmates in the Eagles, Glenn Frey and Don Henley, in singing backing vocals.

[2] Canadian studio musician Don Breithaupt included a chapter on the song in his book on Aja for Bloomsbury Publishing's 33⅓ series since it was recorded during the same sessions.

Breithaupt notes the irony that the battle at the center of the film's plot had, "by 1978 ... already been fought and lost in every major market in North America" where the more commercially oriented album-oriented rock (AOR) had become the dominant FM format.

It begins with an overture,[4] as Fagen repeats two pairs of thirds on a piano, a figure that, S. Victor Aaron writes, "prowls like a panther"[6] while Becker adds bass flourishes and guitar licks, accented by cymbal crashes from Porcaro.

[4] The verse is built around what Breithaupt describes as a "swampy, hypnotic groove," in which Becker plays overdubbed bass and guitar parts in parallel fifths, suggesting the work of Henry Mancini, alternating with Fagen's piano chords, backed by a steady hi-hat and snare drum beat.

This basic two-bar Dorian figure, sounding like some of Steely Dan's other uptempo songs, like "Josie" (a hit for the band around the same time, from Aja) slowed down to two-thirds speed, continues for the first seven bars of the verse.

[4] "On the phrase 'girls don't seem to care,' the harmonic movement begins in earnest," Breithaupt observes, as the string section also enters and Becker adds some guitar fills.

Breithaupt continues: A standard minor blues turnaround brings us back to the top of the phrase, and we find ourselves, eight lines into the song, having heard four key changes, some cuíca and marimba by Victor Feldman, and a string section arranged and conducted by none other than Hollywood veteran Johnny Mandel.

(If that sounds like a recipe for late seventies corporate rock, your Styx albums were different from mine)[4]The verse then repeats, with more Becker guitar fills, but when it reaches the Emaj9, it stays in that key.

[4] This leads into a resumption of the verse groove for four bars, then a descending line brings the song to Pete Christlieb's tenor sax solo.

The groove changes slightly here, as Becker's bass and guitar part becomes a little less sparse, Fagen adds piano fills, and Porcaro opens up with the cymbals.

"An Em9 and A13 suggest E Dorian is still in effect," Breithaupt writes, "but, in addition to functioning as I and IV in that mode, they become, by implication, II and V when the progression shifts into D major for a four-bar chromatic descent related to the intros of [Aja singles] 'Peg' and 'Deacon Blues'".

Becker begins playing what Aaron describes as his "uncluttered, blues-kissed and memorable guitar solo" —"the track's most AOR-sounding element", according to Breithaupt—over the song's nearly two-minute outro.

[4] The full-length version, which appears on the FM soundtrack album and the 12-inch single, has a running time of 4:50 and features Becker's guitar solo outro.

[2] An additional version, unauthorized by the band or its record label, was created by AM radio stations that played the single as part of their Top 40 format.

AM music radio had steadily been losing listeners to FM stations, due to the latter's ability to broadcast in stereo and with minimal interference ("no static at all").

[19][deprecated source] In its review of the single, Record World said that "The mood is more than a little eerie, with excellent guitar work and acerbic lyrics throughout.

[6] Critic and John Lennon biographer Tim Riley recommends "FM" as one of ten Steely Dan songs with which to introduce "non-believers" to the band.

[24] It, along with three other songs that debuted alongside "FM (No Static at All)", including Pablo Cruise's "Love Will Find a Way", ascended into the top 40 for the first time less than a month later on July 1, 1978.