MR

Killer album but would've been better with tommy imo. Hard to believe i was only in kindergarten when this was released....... carry on.

20 years ehh?Where did the time go.
Well I bought this cassette when I was on a 5 month trek through west coast South America.I was in Equador and desperately needed new music.1800 pesos.
To be honest,after 15-20 listens through solid 10-15 hour train treks,I regretted buying it.
But what the hey.
I traded it for a nice empanada and a litre of inca cola.

GREAT GREAT album.

Side one was damn near PERFECT.

Combine Edge of the Century Side 1 with Equinox 's Side 2 and you have the PERFECT album.

No Tommy Shaw on either album!

yogi wrote:GREAT GREAT album.

Side one was damn near PERFECT.

Combine Edge of the Century Side 1 with Equinox 's Side 2 and you have the PERFECT album.

No Tommy Shaw on either album!

My first listen to this CD was a major bummer. The only Glen song I can handle is Love Is The Ritual. The others do nothing for me and Back To Chicago should have never been on a Styx album. Very weak album in my opinion...I put it behind Brave New World for sure.

Thenightbull wrote:Killer album but would've been better with tommy imo. Hard to believe i was only in kindergarten when this was released....... carry on.

You suck lol, I graduated high school in 1991 and my 20 year reunion is coming up


Robin

pinkfloyd1973 wrote:

Thenightbull wrote:Killer album but would've been better with tommy imo. Hard to believe i was only in kindergarten when this was released....... carry on.

You suck lol, I graduated high school in 1991 and my 20 year reunion is coming up


Robin

Hey it's not my fault..... I probably would've been into the band at that time if it hadn't been for those damn ninja turtles

better with Tommy? I don't agree. I'm a huge Tommy Shaw fan, but Glenn's songs MADE that album. Seriously great stuff from him.
The Dennis and JY songs... eh, they were okay, but Glenn's tracks overshadowed them big time.

An album with some good spots and some bad. I was happy to see some of the song performed by DeYoung and Burtnik a few years back when they toured with each other and really made me like the album. The first 5 songs are excellent.

I wish the demo's they did for the album after Edge would surface on an official release or in a demo form. I'd love to hear those songs.

Best song on the album is a cover song "Not Dead Yet"


What no love for Homewrecker?

LtVanish wrote:Best song on the album is a cover song "Not Dead Yet"

Yup. The Bad Examples.

How many other covers did STYX do?

Their first album is mostly covers. Little Fugue in G is a cover. I guess they covered themselves on Cyclorama with Fooling Yourself. And of course, Best Thing was such a good song that they put it on 2 different albums. Does that count?

i always thought the album was pretty good....it had it's highs and lows.......i thought that glen's tracks were the strongest on the album and helped to ensure that it had a good solid rock edge to it even though JY did do homewrecker.

even though it's not a rocker i though all in a day's work was one of the best songs the band ever did.

Half the songs on the album were written by Glen.

If Tommy was there, it would have been a completely different album.

styxfanNH wrote:Half the songs on the album were written by Glen.

If Tommy was there, it would have been a completely different album.

Glen brought a modern sound to the band for the time, but now it sounds dated to me. Very late 80s early 90s hair band sound. Not the Styx sound. Arguably SMTW was the only Styx sounding song on the album. I liked it for a while, but it got old. I don't think it has stood the test of time..

Thenightbull wrote:Killer album but would've been better with tommy imo. Hard to believe i was only in kindergarten when this was released....... carry on.

i bought this on cassette the very day it was released while you were having chocolate milk and nap time.by the way even though tommy was not on this i liked it a lot.i haven't listened to it in years but i can name my favorites off the top of my head.i'll go with ritual,show me the way,carrie ann and not dead yet.i also saw them live the next year when the gulf war was going on.they had a top ten hit with show me the way.good times.

For whatever it's worth, I've never really liked this record. I also don't really DISLIKE it. It's just kinda there. If I never hear it again, I won't care, and if I hear it again tomorrow, I won't care about that, either. It's kind of a flat record, not very cohesive, doesn't have the kind of instrumental fleshing out in the arrangements that I associate with the best of Styx. It's okay, but nothing special, not for me at least. Certainly not the record they needed to make at that moment.


Sterling

Rockwriter wrote:For whatever it's worth, I've never really liked this record. I also don't really DISLIKE it. It's just kinda there. If I never hear it again, I won't care, and if I hear it again tomorrow, I won't care about that, either. It's kind of a flat record, not very cohesive, doesn't have the kind of instrumental fleshing out in the arrangements that I associate with the best of Styx. It's okay, but nothing special, not for me at least. Certainly not the record they needed to make at that moment.


Sterling

I agree with that statement with one exception Show Me The Way. I remember hearing that song on the album the first time and thought - that is a hit record, a great sounding song. I remember thinking how BIG that song sounded. Those first harmonies really carried it. I thought it was the only song on the album that sounded like classic Styx (post PO8)

Still tune in when it plays on the radio today.

For those who dont really like it listen again it is a GREAT GREAT record.

I like the album just fine, but have to admit, I came to it much later. I kind of lost track of Styx after Kilroy, though was aware of DDY's solo work.

I remember the first time I heard SMTW on radio and thought "Wow. That song really pops." I totally loved the song and the video, which got a lot of play on VH1, as I recall. I am surprised it did not get to No. 1 because it certainly should have.

The rest of the album really doesn't measure up to that song and I agree that it was not very cohesive. But it has some really good individual songs from Glen and top-of-his-game vocals from Dennis.


Bugsy

I think the album was kind of rushed to the market. Glen's songs for the most part were ones he had worked on as a solo artist that got the Styx treatment. They really didn't sit down together DDY/JY/Glen and write songs. Throw in a cover song and the sound bounces all over the place.

That said, SMTW, LITR, EOTC and AIADW still sound good to me.

Also...LITR and AIADW sounded just fine done acoustically on Saturday night!

Love At First Sight & All In A Days Work were penned by both Dennis & Glen. The album is really good.

Damn near every song can stand on its own.

What is weird is I have always felt alot of Styx fans didnt like this album because it didnt have a theme or concept ala The Grand Illusion, Pieces Of Eight, Paradise Theatre & Kilroy.

The Styx albums that were themeless were Cornerstone & Edge. Both albums were just a collections of songs. Edge was a GREAT collection of songs.


What is kind of funny is Dennis brought all these different concepts to the table and most Styx fans loved em on The Grand Illusion , Pieces Of Eight & Paradise Theatre. Most believe he missed on his Kilroy concept. Still the minute that a Styx album didnt have a concept or theme most Styx 'experts' felt the album 'wasnt cohesive', 'it was rushed', or 'the band members didnt seem to work together on this one'.

I guess for Styx to really work they needed a concept or theme. Dennis did a GREAT job of providing this. Cornerstone and Edge did not have a concept but......

I liked Cornerstone and I REALLY loved Edge.

Listen to it again. It is GREAT!!!

Love At First Sight was written by dennis,glen & JY.

I like this mostly for sentimental reasons. Still love it, still listen to it. I was a freshman in college when it came out. Bought it on the day is was released, CD, Vinyl and cassette LOL! When "Love Is The Ritual" was released on cassette-single with "Homewrecker" as the flip side I was expecting a rocker. I was a bit disappointed in the amount of ballads and slow songs on it but I still love it. For me, not a bad song on the disc. I worked with Ray Edwards at WOKI in Knoxville, he made the "Desert Storm" mix that helped "SMTW" take off. his was the original mix.

Saw this tour twice, in Chicago and Milwaukee with the 976-STYX mailing list. StyxCon I think it was called. Was a lot of fun and met some nice people. Anyone remember this trip? Did anyone else go or get those newsletters Donna used to send out?

yogi wrote:Love At First Sight & All In A Days Work were penned by both Dennis & Glen. The album is really good.

Damn near every song can stand on its own.

What is weird is I have always felt alot of Styx fans didnt like this album because it didnt have a theme or concept ala The Grand Illusion, Pieces Of Eight, Paradise Theatre & Kilroy.

The Styx albums that were themeless were Cornerstone & Edge. Both albums were just a collections of songs. Edge was a GREAT collection of songs.


What is kind of funny is Dennis brought all these different concepts to the table and most Styx fans loved em on The Grand Illusion , Pieces Of Eight & Paradise Theatre. Most believe he missed on his Kilroy concept. Still the minute that a Styx album didnt have a concept or theme most Styx 'experts' felt the album 'wasnt cohesive', 'it was rushed', or 'the band members didnt seem to work together on this one'.

I guess for Styx to really work they needed a concept or theme. Dennis did a GREAT job of providing this. Cornerstone and Edge did not have a concept but......

I liked Cornerstone and I REALLY loved Edge.

Listen to it again. It is GREAT!!!

By "not cohesive", to me it sounds like some Dennis songs with some Glen songs thrown in. Some of Glen's stuff may have even been his demos with Styx harmonies overdubbed, I'm not sure. They sound like they could be, I've never asked him that. There are a few standout tracks I like, just not the album as a collective. I didn't think JY got his "JY moment", either, because "Homewrecker" just isn't his best work in my view. He's got better songs on his two solo records that I would have rather seen re-recorded.

Sterling

like what? Toys For American Boys? Sitting On Top Of The World? Out on a Day Pass? Which one of his marvelous solo songs would have made a great song. Possible Chain Me Down, but that's about it.

Ash wrote:like what? Toys For American Boys? Sitting On Top Of The World? Out on a Day Pass? Which one of his marvelous solo songs would have made a great song. Possible Chain Me Down, but that's about it.

LOL, I didn't say any of them were utterly brilliant. But I think "Something To Remember You By", "Running Out Of Time", maybe even "No Mistake" with some lyric changes would have been better choices for Styx than "Homewrecker". "Chain Me Down" had actually been demoed by Styx and then rejected, as I recall, during 'The Grand Illusion', so I don't suppose they would have re-visited that one.

Sterling

As for Glen's demos, the Edge versions sound a lot like them but that is indeed Styx on the Edge versions, not over-dubbed vocals.

Rockwriter wrote:

yogi wrote:Love At First Sight & All In A Days Work were penned by both Dennis & Glen. The album is really good.

Damn near every song can stand on its own.

What is weird is I have always felt alot of Styx fans didnt like this album because it didnt have a theme or concept ala The Grand Illusion, Pieces Of Eight, Paradise Theatre & Kilroy.

The Styx albums that were themeless were Cornerstone & Edge. Both albums were just a collections of songs. Edge was a GREAT collection of songs.


What is kind of funny is Dennis brought all these different concepts to the table and most Styx fans loved em on The Grand Illusion , Pieces Of Eight & Paradise Theatre. Most believe he missed on his Kilroy concept. Still the minute that a Styx album didnt have a concept or theme most Styx 'experts' felt the album 'wasnt cohesive', 'it was rushed', or 'the band members didnt seem to work together on this one'.

I guess for Styx to really work they needed a concept or theme. Dennis did a GREAT job of providing this. Cornerstone and Edge did not have a concept but......

I liked Cornerstone and I REALLY loved Edge.

Listen to it again. It is GREAT!!!

By "not cohesive", to me it sounds like some Dennis songs with some Glen songs thrown in. Some of Glen's stuff may have even been his demos with Styx harmonies overdubbed, I'm not sure. They sound like they could be, I've never asked him that. There are a few standout tracks I like, just not the album as a collective. I didn't think JY got his "JY moment", either, because "Homewrecker" just isn't his best work in my view. He's got better songs on his two solo records that I would have rather seen re-recorded.

Sterling

I would argue that they over course corrected. They had not been in the mainstream for 6+ years and thought they really needed to sound modern - alas the Glen stuff and Dennis making the absolute critical mistake of releasing LITR first. SHould have come out with something that had more of the traditional Styx "sound" - AIADW sounded more Styx like but the rest of Glen's stuff, while good, was a big time departure in sound from what was the "Styx" sound at the time.