"Music Time" by Styx

Song#:  1892
Date:  05/05/1984
Debut:  68
Peak:  40
Weeks:  9
Genre:  Rock



Pop Bits:  Once Styx was done with the tour to support their theatrical-leaning hit album Kilroy Was Here, the band was kaput. Tommy Shaw left for solo career as did Dennis DeYoung. However, their label wasn't quite done with the band yet. The stops on the tour were recorded and songs from those shows were culled together for the live double-album Caught in the Act. In addition to the concert recordings, there was this one last studio track from the band that was included on the album. It would end up getting released as a single to help promote the LP. It wasn't a major hit, but it did just barely scrape the Pop Top 40. There would be little promotion for the album because by the time it came out, the band members had already parted ways. The band would reunited over the years in various forms (and even score one last Top 10 single), but this song and the album would be the final ones to featured the full classic hit-making lineup.

ReduxReview:  Ugh. This was not the way to go out. Don't get me wrong - I absolutely love Styx. They were one of my favorite bands. However, this was just an awful song with a video that was equally ridiculous (if not worse). It falls in the category of "what were they thinking?!" This was Dennis DeYoung just being completely over the top. I think he had finally lost his marbles by this point after the Kilroy tour debacle. The live album was not very good either. I think I listened to the whole thing once and then shelved it. This was definitely the sound of a band that had reached its limit. As much as I hated to see the band break up, it was time. Do yourself a favor though - skip this song and album and pretend it didn't happen.

ReduxRating:  1/10

Trivia:  The riff between band members Dennis DeYoung and Tommy Shaw was particularly apparent with the video for this song. By the time of the video shoot, Shaw had already left the band and took off for NYC to work on his first solo album. The remaining four band members soldiered on and worked on the video. In order to include Shaw, a film crew was sent to New York to do some separate scenes with Shaw that would be incorporated into the video. Shaw, who hated the song to begin with, refused to do much of what they wanted, but did shoot a few things. In the end, the video mainly features the remaining four members of Styx with a small one-second insert of Shaw at one point who appears to be waving to the band. (If you ask me, Shaw was lucky to escape this awful mess.)

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