Toph wrote:Give him credit, DDY never wanted to water down the brand. He never saw Styx taking anything but a headline slot and he stuck to his guns. He would rather Styx not tour than do a package tours where you either split the headline role or God forbid, be an opening act (as was the case during the Journey tour.)
LOL...have to laugh at this since everything I read said the second slot was the best slot of Main Event...not a full crowd during the first act...and a band playing way too late and exhausted on the third slot.
It also wasn't "Journey's tour"...that's another one of your lies.
Styx essentially stole the show on that tour - it was an extremely good move for them to make. Journey may have been the inferred "headliner" because they negotiated to always close the show. But, it was three headlining bands...and there was no "opening band" with a short set. in fact, I believe Neal said he would never do this type of tour again because of how exhausting it was.
I remember some interviews with him when the new lineup was opening up in which he specifically stated that the bands Styx was opening up for would have been opening up for them back in the day. He knew branding and felt that there was an air of specialness that you needed to create.
Yeah, that was back when all his interviews made him sound extremely jealous and full of being a victim because he lost control over "his" band, that "he" founded, that "he" wrote all the songs for, that "he" produced and was responsible for the sound. So, it's not surprising at all the "he" was better at managing the band, too.
He also would never have released all the various live and greatest hits manifestations.
Of course not...because DDY is not a record company and couldn't release them. Styx isn't either so they didn't release them either.
Recall, he didn't even wanted to release GH2 as he felt it was watering down the brand since, let's face it, Styx doesn't have 2 CDs worth of greatest hits. I can count on one hand the number of songs of GH2 that were actual "hits".
Yep...but his god-like power over Styx could not stop a label from releasing an album. Shocking. Well, not really since he's just a singer/songwriter/keyboardist.
From DDY's perspective, incessant touring and compilations/live albums over-saturated the market with Styx product. It made it less special. Its actually very smart business sense, but it takes tons of discipline. Other members of the band and that money grubber Charlie Bruscoe didn't understand the strategy or valued short term monetary gains more than longer term brand building. Happens in corporations all the time...
For a band like Styx, it means nothing. Especially when the royalties for album sales go to DDY anyway. Maybe management promoted the idea, but the label released the album - NOT STYX.