Worse case of Writer's Block

[Toph]

What do you think the worst case of writer's block was for each of the two principle writers in Styx?

DDY - Clearly he was not at his best for Crystal Ball after 4 out of his 5 Equinox tracks were awesome (L. Up, Lorelei, SMB, and BFA - not a huge fan of the ballad Lonely Child). Crystal Ball was a big disappointment from DDY. Although, he doesn't like his contributions from PO8 - I think 3 of the 4 songs he was involved in (title track, QoS, and I'm OK) are strong. Lords of the Ring is weak - not sure if I don't like the Tolkein like imagery or JY's vocals or both. Of course one could argue that DDY has been in a writer's block for a hard rock tune from the period after "Black Wall" up through to right before "100 Years" - that is a 20+ year block for hard rock.

TS - Tommy was a strong contributor up through Cornerstone. But Paradise Theatre he evidently couldn't write anything. According to Sterling's book TMTOMH was a last minute add on. My question to that is, if he hadn't come up with TMTOMH would they really have released Paradise with just one Tommy song, and a weak one (She Cares) at that? Personally I thought that his work on the 2nd side of Kilroy was really strong (Cold War is a weak attempt at another TMTOMH in my opinion). Of course one could also argue that Tommy is in a serious writers block now. Can't say he has written anything strong since "One With Everything" and I'm not sure how much of that is him vs. the entire group. His other stuff on Cyclo is pretty weak and I'm not impresssed with anything on BNW. I guess you could say he has some stronger songs on 7 Deadley Zens, but all in all his current block has been going on a while. A lack of DDY influence perhaps? I think Blades can help him with his writing sometimes.

Food for thought.

[LordofDaRing]

I think Dennis said that POE was his, I seem to remember he did not like I'm Ok much. For TS it would have to be Kilroy, he just "couldn't come up with songs about robots".

[BlackWall]

Well, if "POE" was Dennis', I think most artsits can only dream of having such brilliant writers block.. "Queen Of Spades" and the title track are both classic Styx. I guess if he's talking from a commercial perspective, as far as writing hit singles; then, perhaps I can understand. "I'm Ok" could have worked as a single, but is a little cheesey lyrically, and borrows a little of the "Fooling Yourself" sound, musically.
I would say if I were to choose, DDY's block would either be "Serpent" or "Crystal Ball".

Tommy.. Honestly, I would say that his is post-"BNW". I think he has some great work on "BNW", but I wasn't impressed with much on "Cyclorama".

[Abitaman]

DDY was going thru some personal problems during the Cyrstal Ball era.