 | Suite Madame BlueStyx |
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Saturday, December 20, 1975
Styx released “Suite Madame Blue” on Equinox album
Styx charted with Equinox
Equinox |
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Charted: December 20, 1975 Peak: 58 US, 15 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 0.5 US Genre: classic arena rock |
Tracks:Click on a song titled for more details.
Total Running Time: 34:32 The Players:
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Rating: 3.568 out of 5.00 (average of 23 ratings)
Awards:(Click on award to learn more).
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About the AlbumEquinox was “a pivotal album in Styx’s career.” UCR After four albums with Wooden Nickel, they were signed to the major label A&M after their 1973 single “Lady” was rediscovered and became a surprise top-10 hit. The album sold 350,000 copies upon release and eventually went gold. WKWith “their synthesizer-led dramatics alongside Dennis De Young’s exaggerated vocal approach, the material on Equinox was a firm precursor of what was to come .” AM It also showed a band “simultaneously inspired and disjointed“ UCR with “persistent progressive ambitions (‘Mother Dear,’ ‘Suite Madame Blue’)” UCR as well as “burgeoning mainstream aspirations (‘Light Up,’ ‘Lorelei’).” UCR It also marked the final appearance of founding guitarist John Curulewski. He left before the band went on tour, leaving them scrambling for a replacement. They found singer and guitarist Tommy Shaw, who would become a mainstay of the band through its classic years. The SongsHere’s a breakdown of each of the individual songs. |
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Light UpStyx |
Writer(s): Dennis DeYoung Released: July 1976 as a single, Equinox (1975), Classics (compilation, 1987) Peak: 13 CL, 2 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 2.38 streaming About the Song:The lead-off track, Light Up, extolled the virtues of smoking pot and having fun with friends. It didn’t make any traction on the charts, but gained an audience on album rock radio. It “is a brilliant display of keyboard bubbliness, with De Young’s vocals in full bloom.” AM
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LoreleiStyx |
Writer(s): Dennis DeYoung, James Young Released: 2/14/1976 as a single, Equinox (1975) Peak: 27 BB, 30 CB, 28 HR, 26 RR< 9 CL, 6 CN, 3 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 8.80 streaming About the Song:“Although it was the only song to chart from Equinox, the album itself is a benchmark in the band’s career since it includes an instrumental nature reminiscent of their early progressive years, yet hints toward a more commercial-sounding future in its lyrics.” AM
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Mother DearStyx |
Writer(s): John Curulewski, Dennis DeYoung Released: Equinox (1975) Peak: 14 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.38 streaming About the Song:John Curulewski sings the verses while DeYoung handles the chorus on prog-rocker Mother Dear. |
Lonely ChildStyx |
Writer(s): Dennis DeYoung Released: Equinox (1975) Peak: 13 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.35 streaming About the Song:Lonely Child is “a melodic power ballad featuring 12-string guitars.” WK |
Midnight RideStyx |
Writer(s): James Young Released: Equinox (1975) Peak: 39 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.68 streaming About the Song:The “hard rock juggernaut Midnight Ride” UCR is the only song on the album written exclusively by James “JY” Young. |
Born for AdventureStyx |
Writer(s): Dennis DeYoung, John Curulewski, James Young Released: Equinox (1975) Peak: 28 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.52 streaming About the Song:Born for Adventure was written “about legends such as Robin Hood.” WK |
Prelude 12Styx |
Writer(s): John Curulewski Released: Equinox (1975) Peak: 18 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.60 streaming About the Song:This brief instrumental composed by John Curulewski effectively serves as the introduction of the epic “Suite Madame Blue.” |
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Suite Madame BlueStyx |
Writer(s): Dennis DeYoung (see lyrics here) Released: Equinox (1975), Caught in the Act (live, 1984), Classics (compilation, 1987) Peak: 7 CL, 1 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 6.34 video, 8.95 streaming |
Awards:(Click on award to learn more).
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About the Song:In 1975, Styx had yet to become the juggernaut of classic radio, but they could see the possibilities. They’d broken through to top 40 radio with the #6 hit “Lady” which won them a major label record contract after four albums with Wooden Nickel.Their first album with A&M, Equinox, arrived in December 1975. It showed “tighter songwriting and a slight drift toward radio amicability,” AM giving the band a top-40 hit with “Lorelei.” However, the album also produced “Suite Madame Blue,” which wasn’t a single but arguably became bigger than either of the official hits. The song became a staple at classic rock radio and a regular feature in the band’s concerts. Dennis DeYoung has called this Styx’s “Stairway to Heaven,” FR a reference to the iconic Led Zepplin masterpiece and that each “starts slow and gathers steam as it rolls on till the climatic end.” FR He wrote the song in response to the impending preparations for the Bicentennial celebration and the over-commercialization he saw attached to it. Instead of writing a rah-rah patriotic tune, though, he took a more cynical look with lines like, “Red, white and blue / Gaze in your looking glass / You’re not a child anymore.” He said, “You started seeing commercials for the Bi-Centennial mug and the Bi-Centennial panties and all of that.” FR He told Classic Rock Revisited: “The 200th anniversary of America was being totally taken over by commercialization…I had grown up in the so-called glory days of the United States of America, which was post World War II until 1970. To live in this country at that time was really the golden age. The fallibility of the United States was something that struck me and that set the tone for ‘Suite Madame Blue.’” SF |
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First posted 3/24/2008; last updated 8/12/2025. |
Monday, December 15, 1975
Parliament Mothership Connection released
Mothership Connection |
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Released: December 15, 1975 Charted: February 21, 1976 Peak: 13 US, 4 RB Sales (in millions): 1.0 US Genre: funk |
Tracks:Song Title (Writers) [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts.
Total Running Time: 38:06 The Players:
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Rating: 4.698 out of 5.00 (average of 18 ratings)
Quotable:“The greatest R&B album ever made” – Joe S. Harrington, Blastitude.comAwards:(Click on award to learn more).
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About the Album:George Clinton launched not one, but two of funk music’s most important bands – Parliament and Funkadelic (often referred to collectively as P-Funk) – in the 1960s. They experienced their greatest commercial and critical success in the 1970s and perhaps never more so than with Mothership Connection. His “ranks were [already] stocked with the very best of his collaborators,” CS including “Bootsy Collins’ grooving bass, Bernie Worrell’s cosmic piano, a hot horn section and nearly two dozen others adding to the funkification of America.” RV This album marked the additions of Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker. The two horn players had previously worked with James Brown and now “elevated an already mind-blowing band into the best funk band of the ‘70s, arguably the best funk band ever.” AMG Joe S. Harrington went so far as to call it “the greatest R&B album ever made” BT saying it is even more “ingenious conceptually” BT than Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. While Gaye “expressed urban blight” BT “Clinton’s otherworldly persona and outrageous lyrics” RV combined for the ultimate concept album. BT He loads the P-Funk gang into “a spaceship and blasts off to other galaxies, where it musically interacts with societies that surely found the collective as whacked-out as we did back here on Earth.” CS It “became a definitive statement for the genre and a template that was subsequently sourced by jazz, hip-hop, and EDM artists.” CS Certainly “there’s no questioning this album’s impact, one that is still being felt via rap-induced aftershocks.” AMG Mothership Connection picks up where previous album Chocolate City left off, perfecting P-Funk’s formula of “galaxy-bound cosmic slop.” BT Clinton mixed horns “and more dance-friendly rhythms in a definite JB-influenced direction.” BT The opening song, P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up), harkened back to the opening title track from Parliament’s previous album, Chocolate City, laying down a languid synth aura for a spoken-word intro.” AMG The song “steps into second gear though, bringing in Bootsy’s bass, Wesley’s horn, Worrell’s piano, and a chorus of vocalists, it’s fairly evident just how large a step forward Mothership Connection is.” AMG “The second song, Mothership Connection (Star Child), makes the differentiation glaringly evident, most noticeably when the song enters the cosmic, proto-hip-hop ‘swing down sweet chariot’ bridge with its accompanying melody from beyond.” AMG “The funk doesn’t stop there though, with the remaining five songs keeping the tempo laden with dense interweaving rhythms, peaking on Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker).” AMG That song alon “makes the album classic.” CS In addition, if “Supergroovalisticprosifunkstication doesn’t get you moving, we advise urgent medical attention.” CS Notes:The 2003 reissue adds the promo radio version of “Star Child (Mothership Connection).” |
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First posted 7/23/2008; last updated 9/24/2023. |
Friday, November 21, 1975
Today in Music (1925): Ben Selvin’s “Manhattan” hit #1
 | ManhattanBen Selvin |
Writer(s): Richard Rodgers (music), Lorenz Hart (words) (see lyrics here) First Charted: October 24, 1925 Peak: 14 PM, 5 GA (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 0.02 video, -- streaming |
Awards:Click on award for more details.
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About the Song:In 1925, a revue called The Garrick Gaieties was staged at the Garrick Theater that featured seven songs written by the new songwriting team of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. The two “were opposities in personality, temperament, outlook, living and working habits, but their collaboration carried them to the pinnacle of Broadway.” TY2 They wrote such classics as “My Funny Valentine,” “”The Lady Is a Tramp,” and “Bewitched.” The song, however, that introduced the public to Rodgers and Hart was “Manhattan.” It was performed in The Garrick Gaieties by June Cochrane and Sterling Holloway DJ “and generated 10 curtian calls when first sung in public.” LW “Its urbane lyrics have made it a favorite song about New York.” DJ The song references major New York landmarks, including the zoo, the subway, Greenwich Village, Coney Island, and Central Park. TY2 In 1925, Ben Selvin and his Knickerbockers took the song to #1 and Paul Whiteman hit #3. PM Selvin made more than 2000 records; no other bandleader made more. PM He charted more than 100 hits from 1919 to 1934, reaching #1 eight times. PM Mickey Rooney performed the song in 1948’s Words and Music, a “rather fictitious movie biography”about Rodgers and Hart. It also showed up in Two Tickets to Broadway (1951), The Eddy Duchin Story (1956), Beau James (1957), The Rat Race (1960), and Mighty Aphrodite (1995). TY2 Resources:
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First posted 5/14/2025. |
Queen released A Night at the Opera
A Night at the Opera |
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Released: November 21, 1975 Peak: 4 US, 14 UK, 2 CN, 12 AU, 13 DF Sales (in millions): 3.0 US, 0.3 UK, 10.0 world, 43.5 EAS Genre: glam rock/classic rock |
Tracks:Song Title (Writers) [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts.
Total Running Time: 43:08 The Players:
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Rating:4.436 out of 5.00 (average of 23 ratings)
Awards:(Click on award to learn more).
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The Beginning“Queen’s roots can be traced to another group named Smile, which was typical of the blues-based, proto-heavy-metal hard rockers who proliferated in England in the wake of the late-'60s psychedelic explosion. When Smile's lead vocalist quit in 1971, guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor formed a new group with flamboyant singer Freddie Mercury, formerly of a band called Wreckage, and a solid and ultra-melodic bass player named John Deacon.” JDWhile they came to be known as “revered British art-rockers and glam-popsters,” JD “the quartet’s early releases consisted of fairly straightforward rock, distinguished primarily by Mercury’s theatrical, Broadway-flavored singing style.” JD When A Night at the Opera was released “there was still a perception that Queen was essentially a prog rock band.” CM “Queen was able to fully indulge its vision of symphonic rock for the first time.” JD A Night at the Opera and A Day at the RacesWhile the focus here is on Queen’s fourth album, 1975’s A Night at the Opera, it is necessary to mention its follow-up, 1976’s A Day at the Races. The two releases were just over a year apart from each other and shared “similar cover art and titles lifted from movies by the Marx Brothers.” JD“Mercury said…many of the songs were initially conceived in the same period and intended to be part of an epic double album. The record company prevented that from happening, figuring that two separate releases would be more profitable than one giant blockbuster.” JD “The combination of these two discs stands as the best testament to the musical muscle and songwriting strength of the band that is still providing new revelations, unforgettable singalong choruses, moments of headbanging glory, and plenty of fodder for arguing and head-scratching.” JD One of the Most Expensive Albums Ever MadeOpera was the most expensive album made up to that time, taking months to record in as many as six studios simultaneously. PR That “detailed, meticulous productions” AM was a mutual effort from Queen and producer Roy Thomas Baker, who “was more than happy to oblige the boys, piling on the overdubs until the analog 16-track tape shed almost all its oxide and literally went transparent.” GW “Every penny that was spent can be heard in the grooves via the gorgeous harmony vocals, the lush, swelling orchestrations, and the masterfully recorded instrumental flourishes.” JDThe Album’s Impact“When many rock acts were either preening, sexualized idols or campy, trenchant new wavers, Queen seemed to be both.” CS “Overboard was what Queen was all about.” CS Queen’s A Night at the Opera can be simultaneously viewed as the group’s “crowning achievement” PR and “an extravagant indulgence.” PR Certainly it can be “laughably pretentious and bombastic” JD “but that’s exactly what fans love about it.” JD The group “celebrate their own pomposity” AM in “a self-consciously ridiculous and overblown hard rock masterpiece.” AM In his book 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, Tom Moon called it “the campiest rock concept album ever.” TMThe album “set a new standard for theater-rock that was imitated by dozens of bands that sought to combine the excitement of Kiss with the virtuosity of Cream.” CS The Queen sound by definition was filled with electric guitars in harmony, a rock-solid rhythm section, and many layers of vocals,” CRS but even by their own standards, Queen “broke down all the barricades on A Night at the Opera” AM with a mix of “hard rock, wistful ballads, music hall pastiche and perfectly crafted pop with classical trimmings.” PR It was “the disc that established them as a completely unique entity in rock music, quite distinct from the Seventies glam/proto metal pack with which they’d formerly been grouped.” GW “It’s prog rock with a sense of humor as well as dynamics.” AM The SongsOne “can make the case that the 13 songs here cover 13 genres.” CM “Delivered with sly winks and high-gloss dazzle, these put Queen closer, sensibility-wise, to the theatrical entertainments of a bygone age than anything on pop radio.” TM “Tucked between the kitschy, amazingly detailed period pieces” TM are “head-spinningly intricate, illustrations of Queen’s ability to conjure music of preposterous flamboyance that somehow still manages to flat-out rock.” TMHere are insights on individual songs. “Death on Two Legs” “Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon” “I’m in Love with My Car” “You’re My Best Friend”
“‘39” “Seaside Rendezvous” “The Prophet’s Song” “Bohemian Rhapsody” The song “was recorded over an intense three-week span and painstakingly spliced together from numerous different segments. The goal of producing a merger of rock and opera had been attempted numerous times since the mid-'60s, but in one song, Queen actually got closer than notable album-length predecessors such as Tommy, Jesus Christ Superstar and the Pretty Things’ psychedelic nugget, S.F. Sorrow, in the sense of producing both an epic story set to song and a great rock tune that embraces operatic motifs.” JD
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First posted 3/23/2008; last updated 9/10/2024. |
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