The Number Fortys: Styx - "Music Time"

In The Number Fortys, we review every song that was sitting at #40 on the Billboard chats, starting in the first week of January 1984, right around the time this writer became cognizant/obsessive about music. The seeds for the idea came from Tom Breihan's Number Ones column over at Stereogum. However, we here at k-postpunk believe that the bottom is more interesting than the top (and obscurity is more interesting than either).

You've got to hear and watch this one before we go any further.

This song caused Styx to break up. And for that, we should add a few points to this song's score, because Styx fucking sucked. Their 70's hits Lady, Come Sail Away, and Babe are all monotonous turgid turds that dominated classic rock radio (probably still do for all I know). And they're probably best known, in a pop culture sense, for Mr. Roboto, a song that can only be enjoyed ironically, i.e. in a isn't-it-hilarious-that-we-are-actually-listening-to-this-right-now sense. Tommy Shaw, the Styx guitarist, left the band because they didn't rock hard enough, or had gotten too musical theatre or something. This was his first solo single.

Tommy Shaw's declaration of freedom reached #33, so maybe it'll pop up here in the next couple of months. But I think it needs to be said that leaving a band because you've just gotta rock man and emerging with this cheeseball shit may be one of the greatest self-owns in music history (am I getting this music critic hyperbole thing right?).

As for Music Time, it's close enough to Devo, and I guess early Oingo Boingo, that you could probably play it for fans of those bands and they'd probably like it. And if they didn't like it, they might be forced to go back and re-evaluate their love for those bands Hint: Devo wasn't actually as smart as people think they were, and their satire wasn't all that incisive. Most of Devo's (and in this case Styx's) satire is little more than saying you like things that you actually don't. So I guess most people I knew in middle school were also brilliant satirists of mass culture yeah, I'd LOVE to go to Sizzler for dinner. That sounds AMAZING. NICE shirt by the way...not. See, when the Styx guy says I like fast food we're supposed to understand that he doesn't actually like fast food, that he's making fun of people who like fast food. It (and Devo) suggests that the problem in society today is the shallow, self-interested choices made by poor people, and not say rampant structural inequality (both financial and societal) and corruption fostered by the rich that creates systems of oppression. To put it more clearly, Devo (and this one Styx song) have zero criticisms of the oppressors in their philosophy (which can be reduced to "everyone is stupid but me, and I guess, by extension you, since you're smart enough to listen to me," but lots of criticism of the oppressed. Devo was the kind of band that would criticize people for not voting, and deduce that they're lazy/apathetic/etc., without ever mentioning the mechanisms that keep people from voting. Just something to think about.

But getting back to Styx. Music Time is a 2.

THE NUMBER ONE

We covered most of this when it popped up last week, but right now I'm just wondering if she had a brother named Denephew.