{"id":45187,"date":"2018-01-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-16T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/pieces-of-eight\/"},"modified":"2018-01-16T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-01-16T00:00:00","slug":"pieces-of-eight","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/pieces-of-eight\/","title":{"rendered":"Pieces Of Eight"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m not going to lie; despite being a classic rock connoisseur, Styx has never really come across my radar. Everyone knows the big singles and they are fun to be sure, but it wasn\u2019t as if their albums were just clamoring to be listened to…that is until I picked up Pieces Of Eight<\/em> at a local used book store. I briefly scanned the track list, saw what I would probably consider my two \u201cfavorite\u201d Styx tracks (\u201cBlue Collar Man\u201d and \u201cRenegade\u201d) and decided \u201cWhy not?\u201d for three bucks. <\/p>\n

What greeted me was a confusing mess of an album, featuring a band that seemed to want to be an arena rock group one moment, a pop sensation in another, and a progressive entity when they weren\u2019t feeling those other two genres. I suppose that inner struggle came across in some of their biggest singles: \u201cCome Sail Away\u201d and \u201cMr. Roboto\u201d differentiate themselves in unique ways from a traditional pop song. So now experiencing Styx in their \u201cnatural born environment\u201d provided a glimpse of their career.<\/p>\n

In search of that one sound, Styx doesn\u2019t really pull anything off particularly well. The proggier moments, such as \u201cLords Of The Ring\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m Ok\u201d lack the complexity and proficiency of a Yes, Genesis, or Rush. There are attempts to reach a certain scale of grandeur, whether it\u2019s flourishes of an organ, sustained guitar solos, or \u201cepic\u201d subject matter, but it just isn\u2019t captivating in the slightest. <\/p>\n

As a big Tolkien fan I particularly took umbrage at the lyrics for \u201cLords Of The Ring.\u201d I am not saying that you have to quote Tolkien directly, but let\u2019s face it, if you name a song after a massively successful fantasy series, you might want to do better than \u201cAll hail to the Lords of the Ring \/ To the magic and mystery they bring.\u201d Oooooo, powerful stuff there, guys…<\/p>\n

To be fair to Dennis DeYoung and Co., the two most successful moments on the record are the two famous singles (\u201cBlue Collar Man\u201d and \u201cRenegade\u201d), and they tell a decent story with some professional, occasionally inspired musicianship. Between the two, \u201cRenegade\u201d has always seemed to me the more complete package; the opening a cappella vocals set the tone and the band keeps that mood going throughout the rest of the song. And while I don\u2019t want to throw out too many political hot takes, \u201cBlue Collar Man\u201d certainly remains a prescient topic in the Age Of Trump.<\/p>\n

So considering the frequency with which the aforementioned singles receive radio play, I can\u2019t give a reason why it would be worth pursuing the rest of Pieces Of Eight<\/em>. And quite frankly, if this was the commercial and artistic peak for the group, that speaks a great deal about the rest of the discography for Styx…stick to the singles and greatest hits collection, folks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":33371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5844],"rating":[11205],"class_list":["post-45187","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-styx","rating-rating-d-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45187","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\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45187"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45187"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}