Styx Album: “Pieces of Eight”

Another great effort from one of rock's most underrated acts. Some may find the lyrics to a couple of the songs to be a little corny(I'm OK, Lords of the Ring), but the music is absolutely gorgeous throughout. One thing that's always puzzled me about Styx is how little notice Dennis DeYoung has gotten for his keyboard playing. I'm not a keyboard player, so I can't really speak as to the difficulty of his parts; all I know is, his arrangements were beautiful and his solos rocked, and to be perfectly honest, I've never heard anyone who sounds anything like him. Some of you keyboardists out there are probably sneering and thinking "Keith Emerson"(of ELP); but I would say that while he may have been an amazing player and a great showman, most of his music is just flat out boring. Anyway, Dennis is in top form on this album. The synth solo on "Sing for the Day" is so joyous it practically brings tears to my eyes. Lest I forget, let me add that the guitars of Tommy Shaw and James Young are also great as usual. The bottom line is this: Pieces of Eight is one of the best albums by a unique band at the height of their powers. No one else has sounded like this before or since.

Generally acknowledged as Styx's most enduring album, very few of the reviews so far have mentioned anything about the album's overall concept. Released in September 1978, there's much more to this collection than cheery vocal harmonies and a few classic rock radio hits. While the individual songs of DeYoung, Shaw, and Young are all very different, there is a recurring theme behind the lyrics.

The band's eighth studio album, Pieces of Eight's concept is the illusions of modern day living. The previous album, 1977's The Grand Illusion, also touched on this topic, but did not carry it through on every single song. ("Come Sail Away" and "Castle Walls" are seemingly just fantasy pieces, without any underlying theme.) Take a look at the songs of Pieces of Eight:

"Great White Hope": the illusion of America as the fastest gun in the west, or the undefeated champ.

"I'm Okay": the illusions behind the late 1970s self-esteem movement.

"Sing for the Day": the illusion of eternal youth.

"The Message/Lords of the Ring": nothing to do with Tolkein, but rather with the illusion of celebrity and "making it". The "ring" is the "brass ring" of success. The last verse intones: "And though the legend was pure fantasy - we still need the hope it brings."

"Blue Collar Man": the illusion of "job security".

"Queen of Spades": not about gambling (as many people suppose), but the illusion of luck and good fortune. "Luck is a lady whose smile is as cold as a stone."

"Renegade": the illusion of escape and the so-called glamour of life on the lam.

"Pieces of Eight": the illusion of wealth, and the alleged power and happiness it brings. This song also brings home the overall theme of not trading reality for unreachable fantasy. (Enron/Broadcom moguls, are you listening?)

The album then closes with perhaps the most beautiful piece the band has ever recorded, the ethereal, dreamy "Aku Aku", music to float away on. Named after the ancestral spirits of the people of Easter Island, it also ties in with Hypgnosis' outer-cover and gatefold photography. That Easter Island was chosen is also appropriate to the concept because rather than being an idyllic South Seas isle, the local history is one of people who divided into groups and almost completely destroyed each other fighting over dwindling natural resources. In other words, there are no island paradises.

Most will agree this is the last album Styx recorded before moving into their lighter, Broadway-style period. Later albums were also conceptual, but were either too elusive (Paradise Theater) or hammered home too hard (Kilroy was Here). On Pieces of Eight, the production, musicianship, and songwriting were never better, and the concept has proved even more appropriate with the passage of time. Because of the dynamic contrasts between the celestial synths/acoustic guitars and the heavy guitar rock/cathedral organ, this album was very popular with the "half-speed mastered virgin-vinyl" audiophile movement among late 1970s LP buyers (I still have mine). Pieces of Eight still sounds great today in any format, and while Styx will always be dismissed by the roots-rock crowd, it has proved to be their most outstanding achievement musically, lyrically, and conceptually. Easter Island, indeed.

I am a big fan of most Styx albums, from their earliest, pre-Tommy Shaw stuff right up through the more "pop-oriented" stuff of the '80's and beyond. However, to me the most vintage Styx has to be "The Grand Illusion" and this album ("Paradise Theater" is not far behind). With the opening track "Great White Hope", which starts with Dennis DeYoung "announcing" followed by James Young breaking into song, you can tell that this is going to be quite a ride. Rarely did Dennis and James collaborate better vocally than on that song. "Sing For The Day" is a nice mellow Tommy Shaw offering, while "Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)" and "Renegade" are big rocking hits with Tommy on lead. "Renegade" to me is one of Styx' finest hits ever. JY rocks again mightily on "Lords Of The Ring". I listen to a hard rock song like "Queen Of Spades" and have to wonder why Dennis stopped rocking like this. He has a great ballad voice but also was a great and very unique rock singer in his day. This effort as a whole is so diverse and rocking that I find it a very enjoyable and interesting listen right to this day. The "music critics" who lump this music under the mindless category of "corporate rock" do not know what they are talking about. Like its predecessor, "Pieces Of Eight" is one of the most original, unique-sounding rock album offerings you could ever hope to listen to.

Styx is one of my Top 10 Bands of all time and this album is my favorite(edging out Grand Illusion slightly). When I had the LP, I used to think that side 2 of this record was one of the best sides of any album made. "Queen of Spades" and "Pieces of Eight" have always sparked my imagination with sound and rhythms that are absolutely beautiful. I consider this album to be the apex of their work because "Cornerstone" and later albums seemed to taper off with lyric and music quality.

By the time Pieces of Eight was released, Styx had established themselves as a successful rock band. The lyrical material on songs such as "Great White Hope" and "Pieces of Eight" reflect their reaction to becoming such a major force in popular music.

"Hope" opens the album with a DeYoung soliloquy reminiscent of that in "Superstars" (from The Grand Illusion album). Then the guitars kick in for one of JY's best Styx efforts. This song also demonstrates the musicality of Styx that they are so often accused of not having. How many listeners out there have ever noticed that the synthesizer solo portion of this song is in 5/4? Just as Dennis' "Fooling Yourself" solo sneaked past us in 7/4 without sounding unusual, the use of an odd time signature by the band is done here with taste and musicality. When Rush plays a song in 7, it's great, but it's also obvious. When Styx does it, you just keep on tapping your foot.

"I'm O.K." contains what is, in this reviewer's opinion, one of Tommy's most beautiful guitar solos (as does "Pieces of Eight"). The difference in guitar soloing styles is obvious on this album - Tommy's solos are typically more melodic, while JY's tend to be more furious and riff-based (perfect, by the way, for "Queen of Spades"). "I'm O.K." is also the first time since the Wooden Nickel days of Styx that Dennis cranks out a genuine pipe organ solo. Very cool.

"Sing for the Day" is a fine song by Tommy, and was released as a single somewhat successfully. It's a bit of a tension reliever, providing an acoustic break from the album's hard rock tendency.

"Lord of the Rings" was written by Dennis, who gave the singing chores to JY. More proof, as I mentioned on my "Crystal Ball" review, that Dennis was a generous bandleader, and deserved the loyalty that the rest of the band has failed to give him in recent years.

This album is best known for Tommy's fantastic guitar-driven songs "Blue Collar Man" and "Renegade," and is for that reason probably considered the most "Tommy-ish" Styx album. Nonetheless, "Pieces of Eight" is the show stealer here. Combined with Tommy's instrumental follow up, "Aku-Aku," the title track is the last epic song we would hear from the band until the morphing of "Half-Penny, Two-Penny" and "A.D. 1958" on the Paradise Theater album two years later. I am pleased to see that "Pieces" will be included in the soon-to-be-released Styx 2 disc anthology, as it is my favorite Styx song of all time. In terms of lyrical content as well as musical creativity, Dennis DeYoung - and Styx as a whole - never shined more brightly.

The only reason I would possibly subtract a half-star from this album, if I could do so, is that by improving as a band, Styx lost a bit of the edge that a hungry band has - that edge that the "Crystal Ball" album contained. I'd call the two albums equally good for different reasons.