I am a huge Styx fan. My best friend from high school and I poured over Styx albums. We knew the hits. We knew the other stuff. We were discussing the relative strength of their more recent albums recently which prompted me to think about how I would prioritize the studio albums in their career thus far.
Courtesy of Spotify, I've listened to their entire discography a couple of times. But I had not really spent any time thinking about how I would rank their albums.
This list is based on the albums as complete works. Having a favorite song or two on an album doesn't make it a good one. What makes a great Styx album? Good lyrics that tell an engaging story. Good music with a unique hook. Strong lead vocals. Good harmonization. And an interesting use of their instruments. These have historically been the hallmark of a band that rose out of a mass of "generic rock bands" to become one of the great rock bands of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Styx is the only group in history to issue four consecutive Platinum-selling albums. Given the fractured nature of modern music distribution, I doubt that any other group will ever come close to that feat. I have marked those albums with an asterisk *.
At the outset, I want to say that I enjoy all of these albums. I either currently own or have previously owned most of their studio albums. Spotify has altered my album purchasing habits. You have to go pretty deep into this list to find an album that I wouldn't recommend to a non-Styx fan.
There are several places where I was splitting hairs by putting one album ahead of another. Ask me again next year and I would probably have a completely different list. In truth, I am a Styx fan because I have enjoyed almost every album in their discography. Most of the time it came down to "which of these two would I rather hear today?" How do you pick between two gems?
Will any of the albums fall below the "don't bother buying" point? Let's find out.
The Grand Illusion (1977)* The Grand Illusion is the first of four consecutive triple-platinum-rated albums. It does represent a shift from their prior work. The keyboards and guitars all have a cleaner sound when compared with the early albums. The album features three and a half hit songs with the rest being solid, well-constructed pieces. While being a great album, it really isn't a huge improvement from Crystal Ball. Had the music world been paying attention, then The Grand Illusion would have been the second of five consecutive triple-platinum-rated albums.
Crystal Ball (1976) Crystal Ball was the first Styx album that I considered to be great. The only thing it needs is the elusive third verse for the titular song Crystal Ball. The songs present a range of instrumental and vocal musical styles. The storytelling was great. The evolving formula for what makes a great Styx album was crystalizing (pun intended). Some multipart harmonies. A growling song with JY singing the lead. A song or two each for Dennis and Tommy to sing vocals. Lots of power ballad elements. The rougher sound of their early albums was left behind like the slag leftover from creating steel; necessary to the process but not particularly useful in the future.
The Mission (2017) Good mix of musical styles telling a unified story. Several memorable songs with great hooks. Doesn't really stick the landing with the last song. With the heavy thematic element of a trip to Mars serving as the focus for this album, I thought this should have been a good nominee for the 2018 Best Related Works Hugo Award. This album takes me back to albums like Crystal Ball and The Grand Illusion. It also recalls some of the sounds of the best parts of their first three albums. Great three-part harmonies. Unique melodies. Interesting use of their instruments. The Mission was a success!
Paradise Theatre (1981)* My first bit of heresy. Paradise Theater is arguably their most successful album. The only album to hit the #1 spot on the charts. The only album with five singles to hit the charts. The album is a complete thematic piece. But when I pressed myself for how often I would reach for this album, it just wasn't as good at the albums listed above.
Equinox (1975) Equinox marks the next significant step in the development of the Styx style after the first four albums. Leading off with the powerful Light Up and Lorelei and concluding with Suite Madame Blue, the album is filled with good music and noticeably lacks any of the quirky pieces that were a part of the prior albums.
Crash of the Crown (2021) This was a bit of a confounding album for me. On the one hand, the musicality of the songs was very good. The lyrics were good if a little bit nuanced. If there was a central narrative message to the album, it was obscured in their attempt to leave that message indistinct. Were they making an album about Donald Trump? About Covid or some other pandemic? Was this more about the general disjointed nature of our culture? The result leaned a bit too close to being generic to be certain. I suspect this album will continue to grow on me.
Pieces of Eight (1978)* My second bit of heresy. While the songs on this album are definitely Styx material, the subject matter is kind of a mess. There isn't much of a theme in an album with a boxing song (Great White Hope) and a song alluding to fantasy fiction (Lords of the Ring). The second half of the album is where most of the good music resides with Blue Collar Man (Long Nights), Renegade, and potentially Queen of Spades and the title track Pieces of Eight. The album concludes with the return of the oddity track named Aku-Aku.
Brave New World (1999) This album witnessed the return of Tommy Shaw to the fold. It also marks the last album with Dennis DeYoung. The tracklisting illustrates how the group had already begun to split with Shaw and James Young collaborating on one set of tracts and DeYoung working on this own, separate songs. DeYoung's tracks still sound more like modern Broadway show tunes. This album is still a collection of very good music.
Cornerstone (1979)* And here's another bit of heresy. While none of the songs on Cornerstone are bad, very few of them (Babe aside) stand out in the Styx catalog. Some of them (e.g. Why Me, Never Say Never) seem to be more filler than anything else. Good filler, but filler nonetheless. Dennis DeYoung is recognized by some as the originator of the power ballad. This album seems to be an effort to make every song some flavor of power ballad. The result is a collection of not very memorable but pleasant songs.
Kilroy Was Here (1983) This is the album the famously presaged the break-up of the semi-original Styx lineup. Dennis DeYoung was enamored with more theatrical writing. The rest of the band, more prominently James Young and Tommy Shaw, wanted to stay closer to their rock roots. While the band continued for many years, this was the album where the cracks in their relationship first formed. Mr. Roboto was the much-maligned lead single for the album. It was on the radio all of the time. Sometimes oversaturation of a song can hurt an album's reputation. Nonetheless, the album has a number of solid songs including Don't Let It End, Just Get Through This Night, and Haven't We Been Here Before. By the end of the album, it felt a bit more like the soundtrack of something like Oklahoma! or The Music Man. It was good rock and roll, but it had a touch too many theatrical flourishes. The ending song, Don't Let It End (reprise), felt a bit more like an old vaudeville number and less of a rock song.
Styx II (1973) This album marks a slow progression in the development of the band's songwriting and musical style. It still retains the musical feel of an early 70s album by a generic band of that time with the additional storytelling style that is the hallmark of Styx albums down the ages.
Man of Miracles (1974) While the album lacks any of the unusual pieces that marked the first three albums, it also doesn't contain any notable songs. The music is solid and worth a listen.
Styx (1972) Their debut album is still quite listenable. "Movement For The Common Man" covers a broad range of musical styles in a single extended track with an interview of a taxicab driver to break things up a bit. Kind of odd. While the songs seem to have a sound similar to many other early 1970s bands, you can hear the basic skills that would later take Styx to the top of the charts. The sounds of the guitars and keyboards are a little fuzzy. Some of that may be an early 1970s aesthetic and some of it may be the studios at Wooden Nickel Records.
The Serpent Is Rising (1973) This album was a personal favorite from the time that I discovered it in the 1980s. So it pains me to say that this album was a modest step backward from their first two albums. There are elements of progress in their musicality as indicated by The Grove of Eglantine and the first part of As Bad As This. But there are also quirky elements (the last half of As Bad As This, Krakatoa e.g.) that simply don't fit in on a rock album. I still want to hear their version of the Halleluja Chorus on the radio one time.
Big Bang Theory (2005) This collection of covers is somewhat interesting. The band displays their usual musical and vocal talents and manages to present a couple of interesting performances. As these are covers rather than new songs, they aren't really all that new/interesting. It's worth a listen...once.
Cyclorama (2003) This is a curious album. It contains some generic 80s rock band music. It has some pieces that sound like a later-era rock band; think Fountains of Wayne. It has a quirky snippet with guest vocals by Billy Bob Thorton. And it has a few pieces that are solidly Styx. Good but not necessarily memorable music.
Edge of the Century (1990) Tommy Shaw was in Damn Yankees and unavailable for this album. Glenn Burtnick replaced Tommy on this album. It shows. The musical styles range from mildly 80s electronica to blues to something of a generic 50s vibe. There is plenty of camp as well. The addition of a harmonica shifts the sound away from this historical Styx sound. Aside from a couple of songs like Show Me The Way and Love At First Sight, there isn't really much memorable to this album. At the end of the day, I am unlikely to listen to this album again.
There really isn't a binary "listen/don't listen" line to this list. The Styx discography breaks down into three eras. The early era obviously begins with the Wooden Nickel Records (Styx, Styx II, TheSerpent is Rising) and concludes with Equinox as the transition album. The middle section includes their 70s and 80s era albums. The late section is strung out from the 90s until today.
Each era had notable songs. Any true Styx fan should at least be familiar with the albums that make up their discography.
I wouldn't recommend Edge of the Century, Cyclorama, or The Big Bang Theory to anyone that isn't a hardcore Styx fan. There just isn't enough there to be memorable.
Otherwise, I think the list is pretty self-evident. The albums at the top of the list are worth having in heavy rotation in your music queue. The further down the list, the less frequently I would listen to those albums.
How would you rank Styx's discography?
A Bright Shore by S.M. Anderson
