When Does Cornerstone Officially Turn 30?

[Everett]

???

[classicstyxfan]

has it really been 30 YEAYS since the day the music died ???? DAMN, Im etting old !!!

Correction....that was Kilroy, Cornerstone was the day the Music 1st started showing symptoms......

[hoagiepete]

has it really been 30 YEAYS since the day the music died ???? DAMN, Im etting old !!!

Correction....that was Kilroy, Cornerstone was the day the Music 1st started showing symptoms......

Cornerstone was definitely the beginning of the end. How much of that was driven by the record label? They probably knew the sappy ballads would sell back then. I suppose this has been covered before, but I would expect there was pressure applied.

[LordofDaRing]

Yeah, to bad it alienated all styx fans, so much so nobody bought Paradise Theater or attended the year long tour....

[bugsymalone]

Yeah, to bad it alienated all styx fans, so much so nobody bought Paradise Theater or attended the year long tour....

Yeah. Wasn't that a shame indeed.


Bugsy

[cittadeeno23]

Cornerstone certainly wasn't as good as GI or PO8, but Love in the midnite and Borrowed Time are still 2 of the greatest Styx songs ever.

[Toph]

Yeah it was so bad that it was the only Styx album ever to garner a GRAMMY nomination....

[stmonkeys]

and we all know how much credibility the grammys hold....

[Everett]

So i quess no one remember's when the aforementioned album was originally released?

[pinkfloyd1973]

So i quess no one remember's when the aforementioned album was originally released?

According to Wikipedia, the release date was October 19th, 1979


Robin

[Everett]

So i quess no one remember's when the aforementioned album was originally released?

According to Wikipedia, the release date was October 19th, 1979 Robin

Thanks what was everyone's first impressions on the album?

[Mr JY Roboto]

When I first heard Cornerstone, I was really disappointed. I loved GI and POE..they were big sounding rock records. Cornerstone was a pop/rock record. Over time I learned to like parts of Cornerstone because I was a diehard fan and diehards will like mostly anything. I was hopeful the next record would be better and it was much better than Cornerstone. They got back alot of the old fans and brought in many new. Some fans never came back after Cornerstone and with good reason...Styx was not the same band as they were from Equinox through Pieces of Eight. Doesn't make the Styx of 1981 any less of a band than the Styx of 1977...times change and so do people.

[MCM]

I love Cornerstone, but it was the beginning of the end.

[bugsymalone]

It's funny. We have had a lot of Cornerstone threads on here over the years. It seems to generate lots of comments.

Save for two songs (FT and Eddie) this is a really nice album. I remember "Lights" getting a lot of radio play around my neck of the woods and always loving that song. The jazzy break in it has always been one of my favorites -- that, and the really wonderful harmonies on it.

"Borrowed Time" is a top level song and I think holds up to any on the great Classic Styx albums.

If it was a radical change of direction for Styx, I sure didn't see it. I felt it moved them a little in a different direction, but I never saw that as a bad thing. To me it was an album that would allow them to expand the type of music they recorded and performed.

But I still feel "First Time" was a bad choice to include on an album that already had a power ballad. One per album = plenty.

Bugsy

[Toph]

When I first heard Cornerstone, I was really disappointed. I loved GI and POE..they were big sounding rock records. Cornerstone was a pop/rock record. Over time I learned to like parts of Cornerstone because I was a diehard fan and diehards will like mostly anything. I was hopeful the next record would be better and it was much better than Cornerstone. They got back alot of the old fans and brought in many new. Some fans never came back after Cornerstone and with good reason...Styx was not the same band as they were from Equinox through Pieces of Eight. Doesn't make the Styx of 1981 any less of a band than the Styx of 1977...times change and so do people.

As does music...look if they release GI Pt 3, it is a stiff. Period. Kansas didn't evolve - their album Monolith came out in 1979 right after two tremendously successful releases Point of Know Return and Leftoverture.... It bombed. Why? because it was the same...

Look at the review from Allmusic.com....

By this release, Kansas had pretty much exhausted every aspect of their musical style. There is some fine playing here, but the band's success seemed to be having an effect on their integrity and judgment, given the penchant for pop songs and juvenile lyrics. The concept of the album, futuristic Indians with space helmets, doesn't help. Even though the chorus to "People of the South Wind" is catchy, the ridiculous keyboard melody that starts the song is shamefully aimed at FM radio. This release lacks effort and direction and is best left unexplored.

Journey, Styx, Genesis, etc. all evolved to meet the change in direction of the musical tides. It gave Styx another 4 years at being at the top of their game. A third Grand Illusion would have spelled the end of Styx 4 years earlier than it actually ended. I say thank goodness for Cornerstone. Thank goodness that Styx had the foresight to see a change in music and have a much more robust history than they would have had if Cornerstone had been the same album as before. How boring would that have been?

So if you don't like Cornerstone, don't blame the album itself, blame the music industry....And be sure that you judge Journey, Genesis et al just as harshly as you do Styx....because they all saw the same trend and acted on it.

[Jodes]

Bingo Toph.. I think they followed the Queen formula very well..

But Toph, you think that Pieces of Eight is GI Pt 2? I thought Pieces of Eight was an even bigger depature from the Grand Illusion formula, I think it has more in common with Equinox then Grand Illusion.

I guess in the US Kansas and Supertramp were two that hit a wall and anything else they released just wasn't touched.

[styxrox]

ahh, where the band goes totally into the pop thing. not that bad of a record, but not ass kick ass as the others. people that heard this album before their older material, might have got the wrong idea that this band didn't kick ass, which they did

[gr8dane]

I do not agree with Monolith being too much like their previous records.Not only was Kansas producing themselves instead of Jeff Glixman doing it.
He produced the previous 4 records.Monolith is so much more dark .Therefore it sounded very different,and nobody wanted to touch it.Well it did go platinum,but nowhere near the success of the others,and not a single as catchy as previously.
I like Monolith better than Point of know return though.The material on Point,was a scramble after writers block after the massive success of Leftoverture.
Ohh and by the way.Cornerstone was not the beginning of the end.Grand Illusion was.And it goes without saying that that is in my humble opinion obviously.

[bugsymalone]

I thought Pieces of Eight was an even bigger departure from the Grand Illusion formula, I think it has more in common with Equinox then Grand Illusion.

That may be why I like Po8 better than GI. Equinox is my favorite Styx album.


Bugsy

[Tanirocker]

According to Wikipedia, the release date was October 19th, 1979



Wikipedia is incorrect. I still have the receipt (yeah, I was that big of a geek) from buying it on September 28, 1979.


Tani

[pinkfloyd1973]

According to Wikipedia, the release date was October 19th, 1979



Wikipedia is incorrect. I still have the receipt (yeah, I was that big of a geek) from buying it on September 28, 1979.


Tani

Guess you really can't rely on Wikipedia (they're a few weeks late)


Robin :roll:

[StyxCollector]

According to Wikipedia, the release date was October 19th, 1979



Wikipedia is incorrect. I still have the receipt (yeah, I was that big of a geek) from buying it on September 28, 1979.


Tani

Also remember that the 28th was a Friday. New releases have been on Tuesdays, so you have one of two things here:
1. It actually shipped and was sold on 9/25
2. Where you bought it, someone put it out early. That wasn't uncommon, and still isn't (i.e. all the stories of places like BB, Wal Mart, and Target putting stuff out the weekend before).
3. In support of #2, it may have come out 10/2. So getting the weekend before isn't a stretch.

[Tanirocker]

Also remember that the 28th was a Friday. New releases have been on Tuesdays, so you have one of two things here:
1. It actually shipped and was sold on 9/25
2. Where you bought it, someone put it out early. That wasn't uncommon, and still isn't (i.e. all the stories of places like BB, Wal Mart, and Target putting stuff out the weekend before).
3. In support of #2, it may have come out 10/2. So getting the weekend before isn't a stretch.

NARM began the practice of releasing all records on Tuesdays in the mid-1980s, several years after the release of Cornerstone.

I'm pretty sure that the 28th was the official release date. I can't get to my files right now, but I'll check the fan club newsletter to be sure. I know that I got the release date from the fan club, and that's why I skipped a class to be at the record store that morning when it opened! My friends and I had to wait for the just-delivered boxes of records to be opened so that we could get our copies. This was at a real record store, the kind you don't really see anymore...sigh...I miss those!

[bugsymalone]

NARM began the practice of releasing all records on Tuesdays in the mid-1980s, several years after the release of Cornerstone.

I'm pretty sure that the 28th was the official release date. I can't get to my files right now, but I'll check the fan club newsletter to be sure. I know that I got the release date from the fan club, and that's why I skipped a class to be at the record store that morning when it opened! My friends and I had to wait for the just-delivered boxes of records to be opened so that we could get our copies. This was at a real record store, the kind you don't really see anymore...sigh...I miss those!

I remember doing that for the newest releases from the Beatles. At a "real" record store. Watching the clerk open the boxes and getting that 33 1/3 album in my hands for the first time.

I got an early copy of "Yesterday...and Today" which had the slapped on "approved" cover. A friend of mine and I steamed it off to reveal the famous, censored, chopped up dolls cover.

Bugsy

[foolintherain]

NARM began the practice of releasing all records on Tuesdays in the mid-1980s, several years after the release of Cornerstone.

I'm pretty sure that the 28th was the official release date. I can't get to my files right now, but I'll check the fan club newsletter to be sure. I know that I got the release date from the fan club, and that's why I skipped a class to be at the record store that morning when it opened! My friends and I had to wait for the just-delivered boxes of records to be opened so that we could get our copies. This was at a real record store, the kind you don't really see anymore...sigh...I miss those!

I remember doing that for the newest releases from the Beatles. At a "real" record store. Watching the clerk open the boxes and getting that 33 1/3 album in my hands for the first time.

I got an early copy of "Yesterday...and Today" which had the slapped on "approved" cover. A friend of mine and I steamed it off to reveal the famous, censored, chopped up dolls cover.

Bugsy

that's worth a ton now.

[bugsymalone]

I remember doing that for the newest releases from the Beatles. At a "real" record store. Watching the clerk open the boxes and getting that 33 1/3 album in my hands for the first time.

I got an early copy of "Yesterday...and Today" which had the slapped on "approved" cover. A friend of mine and I steamed it off to reveal the famous, censored, chopped up dolls cover.

Bugsy

that's worth a ton now.

Sadly, a rare, pristine original, yes. Mine has the wavy glue marks all over it.


Bugsy