The early Styx albums really were ambitious failures; Styx was a band that really benefited from trimming off the excess and keeping songs between 4-6 minutes and making them just pop enough to be accessible but just proggy enough to be interesting. I'll never quite get what happened between Pieces of Eight-which is the closest Styx came to being a heavy metal band-and Cornerstone, where the band is so laid back they're horizontal. That to me was the thing I never got, going from Renegade to Babe in a year. Paradise Theater was a nice compromise between their heavier and poppier sides, and Kilroy Is Here...oh boy.
Here's the thing: I actually didn't MIND the album. Yes, even Mr. Roboto. It's silly and earnest and over the top, but it's a concept album, a full blown ROCK OPERA as they were known back then, when music was basically becoming all about image and four minute music videos, and it deserves some credit for that. But good lord, have you guys seen the concert from that tour? It played on MTV, and, oh, god, was it cringeworthy with all the acting between songs with everyone playing characters. That being said, it also provides me with a lasting memory of my youth. I was at a party as a teenager, and it was, shockingly, one that actually lasted the night, despite having a ton of young people there drinking and playing loud music. You know how most high school parties went; you invited 500 of your closest friends, played music at 120 decibels, and were actually shocked when the police showed up to shut it down. This party, though, was about 40 people, spread out through out the house and the yard, having just enough fun to be a party, and in the den, I fell in with about six people who were watching the Kilroy Was Here concert that they'd taped off MTV. I started chatting with one of them, a kind of bookish looking girl with long hair, big glasses, and a kind of hippy sensibility about her. She'd said something about how she was a little annoyed at her boyfriend because he was outside rather than hanging with her. Whatever, she was fun to talk to and MAN is this Styx concert silly.
Anyway, we talked, bantered, had fun, laughed at the guy air guitaring just like JY playing the end solo on Renegade, started throwing lines from movies at each other, and finally I said, in a flamboyant, movie star fashion, "Kiss me, dahlin'!"
And she proceeded to give young Jaq his first french kiss ever, and continue to do so in various places throughout the house, while her boyfriend was outside, drunkenly pushing a friend of mine's car down the street in an attempt to make him think his car had been stolen, a effort doomed to failure since my friend was outside
watching them push the car.So yeah...despite being silly, I am fond of Kilroy Was Here.
Topic: Styx appreciation (Read 83104 times)
