80's Weekend Rewind #9

Styx MTV Music

In honor of Obama’s victory and the fact that my hometown of Chicago has returned to its rightful place in the national spotlight I felt that I should honor the greatest band in the history of the city: Styx. Oh, stop your bitching. Cheap Trick is from Rockford, REO Speedwagon is from Champaign and I’m not going to even talk about a band that featured Peter Cetera. (Yeah, Smashing Pumpkins was cool but Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness cannot compare to Kilroy Was Here).

This is what modern music is missing. What band has the same sense of style as Styx shows in this video? Dennis DeYoung dressed as a vaudeville piano player. James Young wearing what appears to be a white jumpsuit with the largest shoulder pads ever made. The rhythm section runs the gamut of attire from the bass player in a tuxedo to a drummer who is inexplicably in shorts. And above all you have Tommy Shaw dressed as, well, Tommy Shaw. You always got the sense that he never could quite understand what was going on around him.

Just be happy I didn’t choose Come Sail Away as the song…