The first thing I wondered, upon realizing that the Daily Vault
\nhad never reviewed Styx’s
\nParadise Theater<\/i>, was whether our Fearless Founder was
\nactually from Chicagoland. I know that my home town was on the very
\nperiphery of the Part Of Illinois Around The Big Shoulders, where
\nChicago arena-rockers Styx were as omnipresent as Cub games on WGN
\nand Italian beef sandwiches when I was growing up. That meandering
\naside, I turned my attention to actually writing the damn
\nreview.<\/p>\n
And I’m gonna start it off with a bit of Serious Rock Music
\nCritic Heresy. Repeat after me: Styx Doesn’t Suck.<\/p>\n
One of the things I hate about most rock music reviewers is that
\nthere are certain genres that it’s tres stylish to bash
\nunceasingly. (
\nRolling Stone<\/i> being one of the worst offenders; when I said
\nI write for this site because RS pissed me off at an early age, I
\nwasn’t joking.) One of those genres is the late-seventies
\nearly-eighties genre of arena rock, where musical alchemy mixed
\nprogressive rock with monster arena concerts. Journey, REO
\nSpeedwagon, Cheap Trick, Kansas — lotta bands paid the rent with
\nthis stuff, and yes, some of it’s drivel. But you know what? Some
\nof it’s pretty tasty.
\nParadise Theater<\/i> falls in the latter category; Styx was
\nnever this good before, Styx would never be this good again, and
\nwhen Styx was good — when the band wasn’t infighting or indulging
\nin pop excess like the execrable “Babe” — they were tight, y’all.
\nParadise Theater<\/i> was Styx’s high-water mark, and one of the
\ngreatest albums in rock history.<\/p>\n
Let’s look at the reasons why. First off, Styx was talented; the
\nessential lineup of the glory days, Dennis DeYoung, Tommy Shaw,
\nJames Young, Chuck Panozzo, and John Panozzo, were a great group of
\nmusicians. The song selection on Paradise contains some of the best
\nsongs Styx would ever write: the hit singles like “Too Much Time On
\nMy Hands” and “The Best Of Times” had more hooks than a convention
\nin Las Vegas. Other tracks like “Nothing Ever Goes As Planned” and
\n“Lonely People” (both with a great horn part provided by the
\nHangalator Horn Section) and the driving intro of “AD 1928\/Rockin’
\nThe Paradise” catch the listener immediately and pull them in.
\nWhile nominally Paradise Theater is a concept album (the decline of
\na Chicago landmark theater is used as an allegory for America’s
\ndecline in the late seventies), it never gets in the way of the CD,
\nand songs like “She Cares” — which has very little to do with the
\ntheme — are still delightful.<\/p>\n
The highlight, though, is “Snowblind,” one of the two tracks
\nwritten by James Young. Young is really Styx’s unsung genius; in my
\nopinion (which is what you read this review for, right?) Young was
\na better songwriter than either DeYoung or Shaw, and his tracks
\nsnarl and tear at your emotions. “Snowblind” is a bitter tale about
\ndrug addiction, brilliantly performed; when Young sings “Mirror,
\nmirror, on the wall\u2026” chills run down my spine. This is some
\ngreat stuff, people.<\/p>\n
Styx isn’t cool anymore. So what? It means there’s less of a
\ncrowd at the Paradise, and you can get some prime seats. Visit
\nParadise Theater<\/i> today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":26538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5844],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-37777","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-styx","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37777"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37777"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}