Styx released “Suite Madame Blue” on Equinox album

Suite Madame Blue Styx

Writer(s): Dennis DeYoung (see lyrics here) Released: December 20, 1975 as an album cut on Equinox First Charted: -- Peak: 7 CL, 1 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): NA Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 6.344 video, -- streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: In 1975, America was prepping for major celebrations of its bicennential the next year. 1976 wasn’t just the year that the country looked back, but the year that Styx looked forward. They 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 and during the next year, gave the band two top 40 hits with “Lorelei” and “Mademoiselle.” 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, singer and keyboardist with the band, has called the song Styx’s “Stairway to Heaven,” FR a reference to the iconic Led Zepplien masterpiece and that each “starts slow and gathers steam as it roll on till the climatic end.” FR He wrote the song in response to the impending preparations for the bicennential celebration. 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 B-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 Resources: DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Styx FR ForgottenRockClassics.com (3/21/2018) SF Songfacts Related Links: First posted 3/10/2021; last updated 7/11/2022.

Styx charted with Equinox

Equinox Styx

Charted: December 20, 1975 Peak: 58 US Sales (in millions): 0.5 US Genre: classic arena rock

Tracks: Song Title (Writers) [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Light Up (DeYoung) [4:17] (1975, 13 CL) Lorelei (DeYoung/ Young) [3:19] (2/14/76, 27 US, 30 CB, 28 HR, 26 RR, 9 CL, 6 CN) Mother Dear (Curulewski/ DeYoung) [5:25] Lonely Child (DeYoung) [3:47] Midnight Ride (Young) [4:17] Born for Adventure (DeYoung/ Curulewski/ Young) [5:12] Prelude 12 (Curulewski) [1:21] Suite Madame Blue (DeYoung) [6:30] (7 CL) Total Running Time: 34:32 The Players: Dennis DeYoung (vocals, keyboards) James “JY” Young (guitar, vocals) John Curulewski (guitar, vocals, synthesizers) Chuck Panozzo (bass) John Panozzo (drums, percussion)

Rating: 3.785 out of 5.00 (average of 19 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: Equinox 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. WK With “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 .” AMG 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 lead single, 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.” AMG The second single, Lorelei, proved much more successful, reaching #27 on the Billboard Hot 100. “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.” AMG The “hard rock juggernaut Midnight Ride” UCR is the only song on the album written exclusively by James “JY” Young while Born for Adventure, written “about legends such as Robin Hood,” WK is written by him alongside DeYoung and John Curulewski. Curulewski sings the verses while DeYoung handles the chorus on prog-rocker Mother Dear. Lonely Child is “a melodic power ballad featuring 12-string guitars” WK That song and “Suite Madame Blue show tighter songwriting and a slight drift toward radio amicability.” AMG Despite never finding any chart success, “Blue” found a place on album rock radio and became “the most well-known song on the album.” WK The song was inspired by the then-upcoming U.S. Bicentennial celebration and the over-commercialization DeYoung saw attached to it. It became a staple in the band’s concert repertoire.

Resources and Related Links: AMG All Music Guide review by Mike DeGagne UCR Ultimate Classic Rock WK Wikipedia First posted 3/24/2008; last updated 5/18/2021.

Parliament Mothership Connection released

Mothership Connection Parliament

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. P-Funk Wants to Get Funked Up (George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell) [7:41] (2/21/76, 33 RB) Mothership Connection (Star Child) (Clinton, Collins, Worrell) [6:13] (9/4/76, 26 RB) Unfunky UFO (Clinton, Collins, Garry Shider) [4:23] Supergroovalisticprosifunkstication (Clinton, Collins, Shider, Worrell) [5:03] Handcuffs (Clinton, Glenn Goins, Janet McLaughlin) [4:02] Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker) (Jerome Brailey, Clinton, Collins) [5:46] (4/24/76, 15 BB, 5 RB, sales: ½ million) Night of the Thumpasorus Peoples (Clinton, Collins, Shider) [5:10] Total Running Time: 38:06 The Players: George Clinton (vocals) Bootsy Collins (vocals, bass, guitar, drums) Bernie Worrell (keyboards/synthesizers) Garry Shider (guitar, vocals on “Handcuffs”) Gary Cooper (drums, backing vocals & handclaps) Calvin Simon, Fuzzy Haskins, Ray Davis, Grady Thomas (vocals on “Handcuffs”) Fred Wesley, Maceo Parker, Michael Brecker, Randy Brecker, Boom, Joe Farrell (horns) Cordell Mosson (bass) Michael Hampton, Glenn Goins (guitar) Tiki Fulwood, Jerome Brailey (drums) Debbie Edwards, Taka Kahn, Archie Ivy, Bryna Chimenti, Rasputin Boutte, Pam Vincent, Debra Wright, Sidney Barnes (backing vocals and handclaps)

Rating: 4.698 out of 5.00 (average of 18 ratings) Quotable: “The greatest R&B album ever made” – Joe S. Harrington, Blastitude.com Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

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).”

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Parliament AMG All Music Guide by Jason Birchmeier BT Blastitude.com (Winter 2002/2003). “A Loaded Proposition: Joe S. Harrington Picks the All-Time Top 100…” by Joe S. Harrington CS Consequence.net (9/12/2022). “The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time” by Gary Graff RV The Review (October – November 2001; Vol. 128: numbers 12-23). “100 Greatest Albums of All Time” by Clarke Speicher First posted 7/23/2008; last updated 9/24/2023.