\u201cGive me a job, give me security \/ Give me a chance to survive\u201d
— \u201cBlue Collar Man\u201d <\/i><\/p>\n
If forced to select a single word to describe this album, I would choose \u201cunnecessary.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to know what to think these days about the raft of surviving \u201970s and \u201980s bands, chugging along mining the nostalgia circuit\u2014the current triple bill of Journey, Foreigner and Night Ranger being a prime example.\u00a0 I mean, everybody\u2019s got to make a living, and it surely hasn\u2019t gotten any easier in recent years, whether you\u2019re located inside or outside of the shambling ruin that is the modern music industry.\u00a0 While it can be strange and sometimes disheartening to watch longtime bands become increasingly hollow shells, gate-collecting jukeboxes churning out the hits with two or three or four original members conspicuously absent, it\u2019s a perfectly rational decision to make if you\u2019re straddling sixty with no other marketable talents.<\/p>\n
So what you get, more and more, is bands with just enough of the original juice left to keep soaking their fans\u2019 wallets a little longer.\u00a0 Increasingly, these patched-together groups have resorted to re-recording the old hits that have kept them viable for the past 25 years with their current lineup, as if to prove to the world they can still make that same familiar sound even though X or Y or Z (or all three) are no longer with the band. \u00a0(And not incidentally, so that the current lineup can benefit from whatever album sales they may be able to eke out.)<\/p>\n
Styx is a Chicago band from way back, having formed in 1972 around the rhythm section of brothers Chuck and John Panozzo and lead vocalist\/keyboardist Dennis DeYoung.\u00a0 Help soon arrived in the form of guitarist\/vocalists James \u201cJY\u201d Young and John Curulewski, and this five-man lineup persisted three moderately successful years until Curulewski abruptly exited and was replaced by Tommy Shaw.\u00a0 The band\u2019s classic lineup then produced a string of hit singles (\u201cBabe,\u201d \u201cCome Sail Away,\u201d \u201cCrystal Ball,\u201d \u201cRenegade\u201d) and albums (The Grand Illusion<\/i>, Pieces of Eight<\/i>, Paradise Theater<\/i>) that virtually created the template for arena rock, tempering the group\u2019s initial prog leanings in favor of soaring power ballads and thundering, mostly predictable rockers.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The ensuing internal drama provided abundant material for one of the best episodes of Behind The Music<\/i> in the show\u2019s history, so I won\u2019t belabor it, but suffice it to say that 1983 was the last time DeYoung and Shaw managed to tolerate being in the group at the same time for more than a brief reunion or two. \u00a0Since 2003, Shaw and Young have anchored a lineup that includes latter-day tap-ins Lawrence Gowan (a DeYoung soundalike) on keys and vocals, Ricky Phillips on bass, and Todd Sucherman on drums.\u00a0 Founding bassist Chuck Panozzo also sits in from time to time on tour, and on this album (brother John passed away in 1996).\u00a0 The group\u2019s one-sheet proudly notes that the current quintet plus one has now \u201cbeen together longer than any other lineup in the band\u2019s 40-year existence\u201d\u2014a declaration of victory of sorts for the Shaw-Young camp.\u00a0 Whatever, guys.<\/p>\n
Regeneration, Volumes I & II<\/i> is an album consisting primarily of re-recordings of Styx classics by the current lineup\u2014basically a replication of their current live set in the studio.\u00a0 I would compare the results to an omelet made with fake eggs; it kind of looks the same, kind of smells the same, and kind of tastes the same, but it\u2019s definitely not the same.\u00a0 It\u2019s not that these re-recordings are in any way sub-par.\u00a0 They are professionally done and in most cases remarkably similar to the originals.\u00a0 For exactly that reason, they are fundamentally unnecessary.\u00a0 The best recordings ever issued of \u201cThe Grand Illusion,\u201d \u201cFooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man),\u201d \u201cLorelei,\u201d \u201cSing For The Day,\u201d \u201cBlue Collar Man,\u201d \u201cToo Much Time On My Hands\u201d and all the rest already exist, and these aren\u2019t them.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
There is exactly one new song to be found here, \u201cDifference In The World,\u201d and it does nothing to promote the idea of Styx returning to a recording studio anytime soon.\u00a0 The only other \u201cnew\u201d content consists of Styx versions of two Tommy Shaw tunes that he carried back from his early \u201990s band Damn Yankees; I wish he hadn\u2019t.\u00a0 \u201cComing Of Age\u201d is generic, dated arena rock, and \u201cHigh Enough\u201d is a power ballad so flaccid a double-dose of Viagra couldn\u2019t help it.<\/p>\n
Does this album succeed in demonstrating that the current touring lineup can reproduce the sound of classic Styx accurately and professionally?\u00a0 Indeed it does.\u00a0 Will this album help Shaw, Young et al to sell concert tickets as they continue the stretch drive to top off their retirement savings accounts?\u00a0 Indeed it will.\u00a0 Is there any other conceivable reason for this album to exist?\u00a0 Not really.\u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":30764,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5844],"rating":[5616],"class_list":["post-42438","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-styx","rating-rating-d"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42438","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42438"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}