Styx charted with Crystal Ball

Crystal Ball Styx

Charted: October 30, 1976 Peak: 66 US, 15 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 0.5 US Genre: classic rock

Tracks: Click on a song titled for more details. Put Me On [4:56] Mademoiselle [3:57] Jennifer [4:16] Crystal Ball [4:32] Shooz [4:44] This Old Man [5:11] Clair de Lune / Ballerina [7:09] Total Running Time: 34:45 The Players: Dennis DeYoung (vocals, keyboards) Tommy Shaw (vocals, guitar) James “J.Y.” Young (guitar, vocals) Chuck Panozzo (bass) John Panozzo (drums)

Rating: 3.385 out of 5.00 (average of 23 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album At the end of 1974, Styx had produced four albums with the Wooden Nickel label. Then the song “Lady,” from Styx’s second album, was rediscovered, hit the top 10 and launched Styx’s career. Styx signed with major label A&M and released Equinox, an album that went gold and spawned the songs “Suite Madame Blue,” “Light Up,” and top 30 single “Lorelei.” Despite the new level of success, guitarist John Curulewski “decided he’d been a rock ‘n’ roll road warrior long enough and quit the band. Hoping to keep a dual-guitar front line, Styx sought a replacement.” JA They ended up with Tommy Shaw, a young guitarist from Alabama. It “was the smartest move they ever made.” JA He “proved he was the missing piece to Styx’s musical puzzle.” UCR “His arrival sparked a healthy competition with resident creative forces DeYoung and JY, and dovetailed with their efforts to refine Styx’s art-rock formula into great hit songs.” UCR “Besides his guitar skills, which were considerable, Shaw was a gifted singer and songwriter. His talents would bring the band some of their biggest and best songs in years to come and it all started here.” JA “Crystal Ball wasn't as successful as Equinox, but it was a better album.” AM The album “isn’t completely absent of flaws but it contains some tracks as good as anything else emerging from the American rock ‘n’ roll mainstream of the era.” JA While Crystal Ball wasn’t a huge success, it planted the seed for Styx’s dominance in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s as arguably America’s premiere rock band when they had four consecutive top-10, multi-platinum albums from 1977’s The Grand Illusion through 1981’s Paradise Theater. The Songs Here’s a breakdown of each of the individual songs.

Put Me On Styx

Writer(s): Dennis DeYoung, Tommy Shaw, James Young Released: Cystal Ball (1976) Peak: 2 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.54 streaming About the Song: “Styx’s pop-savvy side may be pretty well documented, but what’s frequently forgotten is the fact that when they wanted to, they could rock too.” JA While written by all three of Styx’s songwriters, its James Young who is the star on “Put Me On.” It’s a perfect album opener, celebrating the joy of being a rock fan – whether it be putting on that new album for the first time or the excitement that comes with going to see your favorite act in concert.

Mademoiselle Styx

Writer(s): Dennis DeYoung, Tommy Shaw Released: 11/6/1976 as a single, Cystal Ball (1976) Peak: 36 BB, 57 CB, 58 HR, 15 CL, 25 CN, 1 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- US, -- UK, -- world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 1.58 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: Newbie Tommy Shaw made his presence known immediately, most notably on the title track. However, here he teams with Dennis DeYoung. “The guitarist manages to coax the better angles of DeYoung’s pop sensibilities to create a hooky, melodic pop tune without the saccharine in later DeYoung hits like ‘Babe.’ Instead of a MOR ballad, we get a bouncy, Beatles-esque tune that could segue seamlessly with the Fabs’ ‘Getting Better,’ complete with bassman Chuck Panozzo’s Paul McCartney-like upper-register flourishes. Just on a basic level, it’s pretty impressive that the same band could turn out diametrically opposed songs like this and ‘Shooz’ with equal success.” JA

Jennifer Styx

Writer(s): Dennis DeYoung Released: February 1977 as a single, Cystal Ball (1976) Peak: 2 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.38 streaming About the Song: Styx were never the most original band. They followed much of the same template for Crystal Ball as they had with previous album Equinox. That means another Dennis DeYoung song named after a woman. While “Jennifer” was released as a single, it failed to find the kind of success “Lorelei” had on the previous album. It is an “icky ode to a 17-year-old” JA and is “as creepy as it is unconvincing.” JA

Crystal Ball Styx

Writer(s): Tommy Shaw Released: 5/14/1977 as a single, Cystal Ball (1976), Caught in the Act (live, 1984), Classics (compilation, 1987) Peak: 9 CL, 1 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 9.65 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: Tommy Shaw’s presence aided the band in “showcasing [its] increased skill for crafting simple, catchy pop hooks out of their bombastic sound.” AM Nowhere was this more apparent than on Shaw’s beautiful title song. It was “a hypnotic folk-rock ballad [that] takes an unassumingly philosophical tack, coming from the vantage point of a young man humbly searching for his place in the world.” JA “Between the bewitching acoustic guitar patterns and Shaw’s warm, soulful delivery, it’s every bit as affecting as the efforts of any contemporaneous folk-rock troubadour, and remains one of the finest tunes in the band’s catalog.” JA While it didn’t chart, it became one of Styx’s many album rock staples and “was performed on every subsequent Styx tour with which Shaw was involved.” WK

Shooz Styx

Writer(s): Tommy Shaw, James Young Released: Cystal Ball (1976) Peak: 26 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.59 streaming About the Song: Tommy Shaw and especially James Young could always be counted on to balance out Dennis DeYoung’s inclinations toward balladry with their rockers. While both have contributed memorable songs to the Styx canon, this is one of the more forgettable outings for either of the two, although Ultimate Classic Rock’s Jim Allen praises it as “a raucous, bluesy rocker.” JA He also says, “Drummer John Panozzo’s groove slams and swings at the same time, and the guitar interaction between Shaw and James Young…could get a team of firefighters suiting up and sliding down a pole. The lyrics evoke an appropriately sleazy street scene full of unsavory activity, just like any down ‘n’ dirty rocker worth its salt should.” JA

This Old Man Styx

Writer(s): Dennis DeYoung Released: Cystal Ball (1976) Peak: 8 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.37 streaming About the Song: Dennis DeYoung pours on the balladry again, this time in a song that taps into the relationship between a son and father.

Clair de Lune Styx

Writer(s): Claude Debussy Released: Cystal Ball (1976) Peak: 31 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.44 streaming About the Song: Like on previous album Equinox, Styx chose to close out their album with a brief instrumental piece (in this case by Claude Debussy) before wrapping things up with a final song. It “sends the pretentiousness meters soaring into the red.” JA

Ballerina Styx

Writer(s): Dennis DeYoung, Tommy Shaw Released: Cystal Ball (1976) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- US, -- UK, -- world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, -- streaming About the Song: Styx followed the same pattern as previous album Equinox by wrapping up the album with an instrumental piece that segued into the closing song, reminding fans of the band’s earlier more progressive rock leanings. “Ballerina” isn’t quite the epic that “Suite Madame Blue” was on the previous album, but it isn’t bad either.

Resources/References: AM AllMusic.com review by Daevid Jehnzen UCR UltimateClassicRock.com (5/9/2016). “Styx Albums Ranked Worst to Best” JA UltimateClassicRock.com (10/1/2016). “How Styx Stepped Toward a Bright Future on Crystal Ball” by Jim Allen WK Wikipedia Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/24/2008; last updated 8/12/2025.

Chicago “If You Leave Me Now” hit #1

If You Leave Me Now Chicago

Writer(s): Peter Cetera (see lyrics here) Released: July 30, 1976 First Charted: August 6, 1976 Peak: 12 US, 11 CB, 15 GR, 12 HR, 13 RR, 11 AC, 1 CL, 13 UK, 12 CN, 15 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 2.0 US, 0.8 UK Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 63.4 video, 250.72 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Chicago formed in the city of the same name in 1967. Their jazz-inflected rock made them somewhat oblivious to genre trends and proved to be a hit-making formula as well. From 1969 to 1975 they landed eleven songs in the top 10 and were sitting on five consecutive #1 albums when Chicago X was released. While that album missed the top slot, peaking at #3, it continued the group’s perfect record of platinum albums and gave the band something they’d never had before – a #1 song. “If You Leave Me Now” is “a breezy ballad about attempting to stave off a breakup.” SG It’s written and sung by Peter Cetera, who “sings the hell out of the song, hitting inverted-eyebrow blue-eyed-soul sincerity notes all over the place.” SG He “sells the wounded sadness of the song’s sentiment” SG backed by “a slow horn riff, some acoustic-guitar flourishes, [and] a sad-bastard string section.” SG The Guardian said the song “impossibly lush and beautifully written, but its sadness is pervasive and affecting.” WK Stereogum’s Tom Breihan, however, suggests that it “is soft and gooey enough that it never even sounds like a possible-breakup song. Instead, it comes off as a simple love song, a prom slow-dance kind of thing.” SG The other band members weren’t overjoyed about how “that one huge ballad begat more huge ballads — most of them from Peter Cetera.” SG Prior to that, the band had more of a collective. Keyboardist Robert Lamm said, “If somebody is obviously egoing out, there’s six of ous to deal with and we’ll get together and give him a knuckle sandwich.” FB However, Cetera’s role was becoming more prominent. Lamm had written and sung some of the band’s best known songs such as “Saturday in the Park,” “25 or 6 to 4,” and “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” Trombonist James Pankow wrote “Make Me Smile,” on which guitarist Terry Kath sang lead. Although Pankow and trumpeter Lee Loungnane had penned the band’s last four top-10 hits, it was Cetera who took the lead on vocals. Resources: FB Fred Bronson (2003). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (5th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 446. SG Stereogum (9/18/2019). “The Number Ones” by Tom Breihan WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 12/27/2022.

Bob Seger releases Night Moves

Night Moves Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band

Released: October 22, 1976 Charted: November 13, 1976 Peak: 8 US, -- UK, 12 CN, 13 AU, 13 DF Sales (in millions): 6.0 US, -- UK, 7.5 world (includes US and UK) Genre: classic rock

Tracks: Song Title (Writers) [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts. Rock and Roll Never Forgets [3:52] (7/9/77, 41 US, 5 CL) Night Moves [5:25] (12/11/76, 4 US, 1 CL, 45 UK) The Fire Down Below [4:28] (6 CL) Sunburst [5:13] (47 CL) Sunspot Baby [4:38] (13 CL) Mainstreet [3:43] (4/23/77, 24 US, 5 CL) Come to Poppa (Earl Randle, Willie Mitchell) [3:11] (12 CL) Ship of Fools [3:24] Mary Lou (Young Jessie, Sam Ling) [2:56] All songs written by Bob Seger unless noted otherwise. Total Running Time: 36:50 The Silver Bullet Band: Bob Seger (vocals, guitar, production) Drew Abbott (guitar, backing vocals) Robyn Robbins (keyboards) Alto Reed (saxophone, flute) Chris Campbell (bass, backing vocals) Charles Allen Martin (drums, percussion, backing vocals) Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section: Pete Carr (guitar, production) Jimmy Johnson (rhythm guitar, production) Barry Beckett (keyboards, production) David Hood (bass, production) Roger Hawkins (drums, percussion, production)

Rating: 4.272 out of 5.00 (average of 22 ratings) Quotable: “One of the universally acknowledged high points of late-‘70s rock & roll” – Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: “Bob Seger recorded the bulk of Night Moves before Live Bullet brought him his first genuine success, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it’s similar in spirit to the introspective Beautiful Loser, even if it rocks harder and longer. Throughout much of the album, he’s coming to grips with being on the other side of 30 and still rocking.” AMG Critic Robert Cristgau said the album is for those no longer in their teens, but that it is still comprised of classic rock and roll riffs in the vein of Chuck Berry or The Rolling Stones. WK Seger “floats back in time, turning in high-school memories, remembering when wandering down Mainstreet was the highlight of an evening, covering a rockabilly favorite in Mary Lou.” AMG “Stylistically, there’s not much change since Beautiful Loser, but the difference is that Seger and his Silver Bullet Band – who turn in their first studio album here – sound intense and ferocious, and the songs are subtly varied. Yes, this is all hard rock, but the acoustic ballads reveal the influence of Dylan and Van Morrison, filtered through a Midwestern sensibility, and the rockers reveal more of Seger’s personality than ever.” AMG Rolling Stone reviewer Kit Rachlis said that Seger sounded like Rod Stewart and wrote like Bruce Springsteen. WK In addition, the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section lends a hand on 4 of the album’s songs. WK “Seger may have been this consistent before (on Seven, for example), but the mood had never been as successfully varied, nor had his songwriting been as consistent, intimate, and personal.” AMG “Thankfully, this was delivered to a mass audience eager for Seger, and it not only became a hit, but one of the universally acknowledged high points of late-‘70s rock & roll. And, because of his passion and craft, it remains a thoroughly terrific record years later.” AMG

Resources and Related Links: AMG All Music Guide review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine WK Wikipedia Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 9/30/2011; last updated 9/30/2023.

 

Abba’s Arrival arrives

First posted 3/27/2008; updated 9/13/2020.

Arrival Abba

Released: October 11, 1976 Peak: 20 US, 110 UK, 4 CN, 18 AU Sales (in millions): 0.5 US, 1.65 UK, 10.5 world (includes US and UK) Genre: dance pop

Tracks: (Click for codes to singles charts.) When I Kissed the Teacher Dancing Queen (8/21/76, 1 US, 1 UK, 1 CN, 1 AU, sales: 3 million) My Love, My Life Dum Dum Diddle Knowing Me, Knowing You (2/26/77, 14 US, 7 AC, 1 UK, 5 CN, 9 AU) Money, Money, Money (11/20/76, 56 US, 38 AC, 3 UK, 47 CN, 1 AU, sales: 1 million) That’s Me Why Did It Have to Be Me? Tiger Arrival Total Running Time: 33:09 The Players: Agnetha Fältskog (vocals) Anni-Frid Lyngstad (vocals) Benny Andersson (synthesizer, piano, accordian, chimes, marimba, backing vocals) Björn Ulvaeus (guitar, vocals, backing vocals)

Rating: 4.209 out of 5.00 (average of 11 ratings) Awards:

About the Album: “ABBA’s fourth album…shows the quartet at the absolute top of their game.” AMG They had achieved modest success internationally, but with Arrival they achieved global superstardom. WK It was the best-selling album of 1977 in the UK. WK Of course, the most-celebrated song on the album was Dancing Queen, the biggest hit of Abba’s career. However, “the record was filled with brilliant material, including the spirited When I Kissed the Teacher; the dramatic, achingly beautiful Knowing Me, Knowing You (yet a further hit); the pounding Money, Money, Money (still another hit off the album); and the playful That's Me.” AMG Notes: “Fernando” was added to the 1997 CD edition of the album. In 2001, the song “Happy Hawaii” was also added as a bonus track.

Resources and Related Links: Abba’s DMDB Encyclopedia entry AMG All Music Guide review by Bruce Eder WK Wikipedia

Today in Music (1966): Simon & Garfunkel Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme released

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme Simon & Garfunkel

Released: October 10, 1966 Peak: 4 US, 15 UK, -- CN, 14 AU Sales (in millions): 3.0 US, 0.06 UK, 7.0 world (includes US + UK) Genre: folk rock

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts. Scarborough Fair (2/23/68, 11 BB, 19 CB, 5 GR, 14 HR, 5 AC, 2 CL, 49 AU, 1 DF) Patterns Cloudy Homeward Bound (2/11/66, 5 BB, 5 CB, 4 GR, 5 HR, 4 CL, 9 UK, 20 AU, 5 DF) The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy) (23 CL, 11 DF) The Dangling Conversation (8/6/66, 25 BB, 15 CB, 23 GR, 18 HR, 26 CL, 85 AU, 22 DF) Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall A Simple Desultory Philippic (How How I Was Robert McNamara’d into Submission) For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her (8/26/72, 53 BB, 72 CB, 61 HR, 27 AC, 37 CL) A Poem on the Underground Wall 7 O’Clock News/Silent Night (11/11/66, 24 GR, 30 UK) Total Running Time: 27:55

Rating: 4.093 out of 5.00 (average of 17 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: “Simon & Garfunkel’s first masterpiece.” It “was the duo’s album about youthful exuberance and alienation, and it proved perennially popular among older, more thoughtful high-school students and legions of college audiences across generations.” “After the frantic rush to put together an LP in just three weeks that characterized the Sounds of Silence album early in 1966, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme came together over a longer gestation period of about three months, an uncommonly extended period of recording in those days.” BE “The album opens with one of the last vestiges of Paul Simon’s stay in England, Scarborough Fair/ Canticle — the latter was the duo’s adaptation of a centuries-old English folk song in an arrangement that Simon had learned from Martin Carthy. The two transformed the song into a daunting achievement in the studio, however, incorporating myriad vocal overdubs and utilizing a harpsichord, among other instruments, to embellish it, and also wove into its structure Simon’s ‘The Side of a Hill,’ a gentle antiwar song that he had previously recorded on The Paul Simon Songbook in England. The sonic results were startling on their face, a record that was every bit as challenging in its way as ‘Good Vibrations,’ but the subliminal effect was even more profound, mixing a hauntingly beautiful antique melody, and a song about love in a peaceful, domestic setting, with a message about war and death.” BE “The rest of the album was less imposing but just as beguiling – audiences could revel in the play of Simon’s mind (and Simon & Garfunkel’s arranging skills) and his sense of wonder (and frustration) on Patterns and appreciate the sneering rock & roll-based social commentary The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine. Two of the most beautiful songs ever written about the simple joys of living, the languid Cloudy and bouncy The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy), were no less seductive, and the album also included Homeward Bound.” BE “No Simon & Garfunkel song elicits more difference of opinion than The Dangling Conversation…one camp regards it as hopelessly pretentious and precious in its literary name-dropping and rich string orchestra accompaniment, while another holds it as a finely articulate account of a couple grown distant and disconnected through their intellectual pretentions; emotionally, it is definitely the precursor to the more highly regarded ‘Overs’ off the next album, and it resonated well on college campuses at the time, evoking images of graduate school couples drifting apart, but for all the beauty of the singing and the arrangement, it also seemed far removed from the experience of teenagers or any listeners not living a life surrounded by literature.” “For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her was a romantic idyll that presented Art Garfunkel at his most vulnerable sounding…while Flowers Never Bend With the Rainfall was Simon at his most reflectively philosophical, dealing with age and its changes much as ‘Patterns’ dealt with the struggle to change.” “A Simple Desultory Philippic, which also started life in England more than a year earlier, was the team’s Dylanesque fuzz tone-laden jape at folk-rock, and a statement of who they weren’t, and remains, alongside Peter, Paul & Mary’s ‘I Dig Rock & Roll Music,’ one of the best satires of its kind.” “The last of Simon’s English-period songs, A Poem on the Underground Wall, seemed to sum up the tightrope walk that the duo did at almost every turn on this record at this point in their career – built around a beautiful melody and gorgeous hooks, it was, nonetheless, a study in personal privation and desperation.” The album concluded with “7 O’Clock News/ Silent Night, a conceptual work that was a grim and ironic (and prophetic) comment on the state of the United States in 1966. In retrospect, it dated the album somewhat, but that final track, among the darkest album-closers of the 1960s, also proved that Simon & Garfunkel weren’t afraid to get downbeat as well as serious for a purpose.”

Resources and Related Links: DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Simon & Garfunkel BE All Music Guide review by Bruce Eder Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 5/5/2011; last updated 10/9/2023.