stabbim wrote:StyxCollector wrote:stabbim wrote:
Sigh.
Come on, it was fun while it lasted.
Fair enough. S'pose we could carry on, regardless...StyxCollector wrote:I would also agree that PT is the most cohesive album Styx has ever done AND that it sounds the most like Styx. You have everything from ballads to rockers and they all sit comfortably. It's also got one of the best Styx songs ever (IMHO - "Nothing Ever GOes As Planned") and one of the worst ("She Cares").
I don't regard "She Cares" with as much disdain as the average Styx fan seems to. I don't especially like it, but attempting to look at it objectively, I don't see too much of a qualitative difference from most of the band's work at that time, especially from a production/arrangement standpoint. I think the major issues are that the lyrics don't have anything to do with the concept of the album, and that the whole thing feels like a bit of a left turn TS (even if the way was already paved with stuff like "Never Say Never.") Perhaps if DDY had sung this one it would have garnered a different reaction.StyxCollector wrote:Interesting take that TS was the outsider like JC, and that JY and DDY are more alike than dissimilar. What's interesting about that is if you look at TS' contributions, he was always the "country bumpkin".
Not always, but that was an element that he brought to the table which, for better or worse (better IMO), diversified the band's sound. It's an element that's missing from PT, which is a very urban-sounding album.
PT really is very urban-sounding, and interestingly enough, Tommy's main contribution, "Too Much Time", is a track that sits comfortably in that company, very different in some ways than much of his previous writing. Now that I think of it, that song fits in very well with everything Dennis and JY wrote for PT, and of course he made an uncredited but very important contribution to "Snowblind" as well as writing the main guitar figure for "Rockin' The Paradise". It's just "She Cares" that sticks out from the group. I actually don't dislike "She Cares", I just think it sounds like a B-side from a Tommy solo record as opposed to a track from PT. I don't think it's terrible, it has many solid elements (Vocal, sax solo, arrangement, etc), it just doesn't work in the collection. On the fade of that song, when Tommy is singing "Wo-wo-wo-wo-wo-wo-way that it goes" several times, on the last audible one you can hear Dennis join in, and even though it's a really small spot in the song, I've always thought it was really a nice touch, as is Tommy's solo, Steve Eisen's solo, and Dennis' piano line. It's really probably the lyric that doesn't do it for me on this song. If it had appeared on an early Eagles album it might have worked better than on a later Styx album.
Dennis singing "She Cares"? Hmmm, I tend to think he can sing a lot of different styles well, but I see that as a stretch. Hard to say unless you've actually heard it, though. I like Tommy's vocal peformance as is on the existing track.
Sterling
The rest of the times have all been about the hypochondria/vitamin thing.
