During its half century existence, Styx has logged 23 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, eight of which reached the top 10. It’s a wide array of music as well, from the prog leanings of “Come Sail Away” and “Fooling Yourself (Angry Young Man)” to the hard rock of “Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)” and “Renegade” to power ballads such as “Babe” and “The Best of Times.” Then there’s whatever you want to call “Mr. Roboto.”
There’s more than a greatest hits album worth of tunes in the Chicago-formed band’s Hot 100 canon. And it’s important to understand the range represented; because of Dennis DeYoung’s prominent keyboards, a few longer tracks, thematic works and album imagery, Styx has prog credentials, but the bulk of its repertoire falls into the more straightforward rock and, in some cases, pop categories. It is in many ways the epitome of classic ‘70s AOR, touching quite a few bases for a substantial and varied core audience.
Choosing the best of Styx’s Hot 100 oeuvre — running from a sole No. 1 (“Babe” for two weeks in 1979) to No. 88 (“You Need Love” four years earlier) — is tricky. There are iconic tracks such as “Mr. Roboto,” “Show Me the Way” and “Babe” that are more popular than they are amazing, and there are some songs at the lower end of the Hot 100 spectrum that have greater creative merit. A long history breeds plenty of choices, and to its credit Styx has never shied away from drifting into different lanes that surprised and even polarized its audience.
With the band readying for a summer Renegades & Juke Box Heroes tour with Foreigner and special guest John Waite — starting June 11 in Grand Rapids, Mich., and introducing new bassist Terry Gowan (brother of singer-keyboardist Lawrence Gowan) — we give you these choices as Styx’s 10 finest Hot 100 entries. (Each song is listed with the album it hails from, the year it peaked on the Hot 100 and its Hot 100 peak in parenthesis.)
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“You Need Love” (Styx II, 1975, No. 88)
The opening track from Styx’s second album wasn’t a high climber and was ultimately superseded by “Lady,” but it presents a free-range ensemble not far removed from its bar-band days, still brimming with exuberance. The bah-bah-bah intro harmonies set up Dennis DeYoung’s “Welcome my friends!” salutation, and the group fires through the track with guitar solos by James “J.Y.” Young and John Curulewski and an organ ride from DeYoung; it would not sound out of place on Boston’s debut album a year later. Styx is having a ball here, and the exuberance is infectious. Listen here.
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“Lorelei” (Equinox, 1976, No. 27)
Styx mastered the sparse start that blasts off into rock arguably better than any other band of the era, and many of its best songs follow that format. Penned by DeYoung and Young, this urgent and earnest plea to a lover to live together (forever, of course) displayed a developing sense of dynamics. It flowed more than it ebbed and used its pomp for modest degrees of melodic invention. It would be usurped in the catalog by other anthems, but it holds up alongside any of ’em. Listen here.
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“Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)” (Pieces of Eight, 1978, No. 21)
The motor on Tommy Shaw’s boat failed to start one day, and the ensuing sputter gave him the musical inspiration to launch this song. The result was a stomping rock anthem, with guitars and DeYoung’s organ moshing together in arena-sized glory. It all provided extra heft for the lyrics, which were drawn from a friend of Shaw’s struggling with unemployment. Listen here.
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“Mademoiselle” (Crystal Ball, 1976, No. 36)
Then-new member Tommy Shaw’s first single for Styx was a buoyant mélange of a boppy Merseybeat melody (the song even mentions London in its chorus) and twinned guitar patterns that straddled Britain and southern California. It has the harmonies that make anything sound like a Styx song, but it was clear that something fresh had been brought to the party which would help take the band up the charts in short order. Listen here.
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“Don’t Let It End” (Kilroy Was Here, 1983, No. 6)
Styx’s seventh and penultimate top 10 hit fits the Kilroy narrative as a love ode to another person but also to music — specifically rock n’ roll. Of the many romantic ballads Styx (especially DeYoung) churned out, this was the best, with some of the sap mitigated by an edge from the guitars and a soaring solo by Shaw. It was even considered for the first single from Kilroy but, at the band’s insistence, swapped for “Mr. Roboto.” The irony here, of course, is that something did end for Styx here, as Shaw left the band after touring to support the album. Listen here.
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“Lady” (Styx II, 1975, No. 6)
Styx had to wait for its first top 10 hit. “Lady” was originally released as the first single from Styx II in September of 1973; it went largely unpromoted and stiffed, but a DJ on Chicago’s WLS-AM subsequently championed the track — DeYoung’s first love song to his wife Suzanne — and built enough of an audience for it to prompt a significantly more successful re-release, entering the Hot 100 in 1974 and peaking in 1975. Short and sweet at just under three minutes, it’s the prototype for that aforementioned quiet start/blast-off arrangement that became Styx’s stock in trade, and the martial-time shift into a dead finish was a strong distinguishing feature. Listen here.
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“Renegade” (Pieces of Eight, 1979, No. 16)
Oh mama, there was a world of hurt — and a hangman’s noose — waiting for the subject of this Shaw song. The wanted man’s story turned into a much-wanted tune in Styx’s canon. It catapults out of its foreboding opening into a ferocious rocker that’s become a trademark tune for Pittsburgh Steelers’ home games in the Iron City. And while Shaw usually played the guitar solos on his own songs, he turned to Young for this one, and his bandmate delivered like a seasoned and dependable gunslinger. Listen here.
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“Too Much Time on My Hands” (Paradise Theatre, 1981, No. 9)
Shaw again drew on the frustration of the unemployed for his only top 10 single for Styx, reflecting the angst of a guy who’s whiling away his days on a barstool and views a future in crime and insanity. That, of course, runs counter to a peppy track that starts with a popcorn synthesizer meter and drives with muscular guitar energy. And if you can’t nail the two handclaps during the opening line of the chorus by now, we can’t help you. Listen here.
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“Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man)” (The Grand Illusion, 1978, No. 29)
Shaw’s pop opus from Styx’s smash seventh album houses one of his sturdiest melodies and most heartfelt lyrics — an observation of DeYoung’s ennui at the time — inside a suite-like composition. A bombastic synthesizer opening gives way to an acoustic guitar pattern that steers the song into its verses, with get up! choruses and a building instrumental break straight out of Prog 101 (including bassist Chuck Panozzo’s simple but signature spotlight moment). You’re still humming it after all five and a half minutes, a testament to the tune’s abundant strength. Listen here.
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“Come Sail Away” (The Grand Illusion, 1978, No. 8)
An obvious choice, but if someone were to ask for the song that best exemplifies Styx, this is it. The six-minute epic — which was cut in half (!) for the AM radio single — boasts a proggy, quiet-to-bombastic structure and trippy, sci-fi lyrics to go with it (we’re pretty sure “a gathering of angels” appeared to Syd Barrett at some point, too). The chorus is a bona-fide arena roof-raiser, and the instrumental sections gave songwriter DeYoung space to twiddle on his synthesizer. South Park may have made fun of it, but you won’t find too many top 10 hits that work for Glee, The Virgin Suicides and My Little Pony. Listen here.
