MR

In case you were wondering, here is where Styx land on the biggest songs of each year according to Billboard. All told, 9 Styx songs were one of the biggest singles in the year in which they were released. Three of them land are grouped from #20-#30 and the rest are grouped in the 50s-60s. No Styx song was ever big enough to land in the top 10 for the year (although you could argue that Babe might have if its charting in 1979 was counted in 1980.) and no Styx song ever just barely snuck in the top 100 in the 80s or 90s. When Styx hit, they tended to hit pretty big.

1975 - Lady, #60
1978 - Come Sail Away, #56
1979 - Renegade, #67
1980 - Babe, #20
1981 - Best of Times, #30, Too Much Time On My Hands, #54
1983 - Mr. Roboto, #28, Don't Let It End #60
1991 - Show Me The Way, #68

Two of their most controversial songs (Babe and Roboto) had the highest rankings. Interesting.

that was pretty interesting......but it would be cool to see how those songs stack up now all these years/decades later based on amount of airplay on classic rock radio. in other words, babe appears to be their "biggest" song ever according to the billboard charts.....but there is no doubt that CSA will have massively blown it out of the water for continued airplay and popularity.

the one thing that surprises me the most about their catalog and hits is that the best of times doesnt seem to carry the ongoing weight of many of their other songs.

their big hits like CSA and Renegade continue to get massive classic rock radio airplay along with songs like Lady, BCM and even songs like the Grand Illusion that were never really a hit.

Babe still gets played a lot as well.......but out of all of their big songs, it seems to me that Best Of Times gets lost in the shuffle a bit and that's too bad because I think it is one of their best songs ever and deserves better than what it gets these days.

masque wrote:that was pretty interesting......but it would be cool to see how those songs stack up now all these years/decades later based on amount of airplay on classic rock radio. in other words, babe appears to be their "biggest" song ever according to the billboard charts.....but there is no doubt that CSA will have massively blown it out of the water for continued airplay and popularity.

I think it would be better to compare the performance of Babe to Lady. It seems to me that Lady would edge out Babe over the long hall.

masque wrote:the one thing that surprises me the most about their catalog and hits is that the best of times doesnt seem to carry the ongoing weight of many of their other songs.

their big hits like CSA and Renegade continue to get massive classic rock radio airplay along with songs like Lady, BCM and even songs like the Grand Illusion that were never really a hit.

Babe still gets played a lot as well.......but out of all of their big songs, it seems to me that Best Of Times gets lost in the shuffle a bit and that's too bad because I think it is one of their best songs ever and deserves better than what it gets these days.

It is kind of odd too since it did well when it was released and it's off there only No. 1 album. never heard my local classic rock station play it. The only thing I've heard them play off PT is TMTOMH. Even with that one, it's not part of their regular rotation of Styx songs.

There are five Classic Rock/oldies stations in my city, and the songs I hear most frequently are Renegade, Blue Collar Man, Come Sail Away, Lady, Too Much Time, and Fooling Yourself. That's pretty much the order of frequency. To a much lesser extent, I hear Babe and Grand Illusion. It's been decades since I've heard Best of Times on the radio.

We have a "Bob" station here and in regular rotation (at least once a week) I hear Mr. Roboto, Don't Let It End, Best Of Times and Light Up. Light Up sounds a bit out of place on an 80's intensive station but hey, I'll take it.