Styx: Kilroy Was Here(1983)

 

So what does a band do when there pervious album goes Triple Platinum?

In Styx‘s case the triple Platinum Album was Paradise Theater.   Styx than decide’s to make a complete left turn and release a concept album called Kilroy Was Here which confused everyone including the public when Kilroy only went Platinum upon its release in 1983.

More importantly Kilroy killed Styx  after this release. The band toured the album and basically called it a career with both Dennis De Young and Tommy Shaw releasing their own solo albums.

The band was no more!

Concept albums in the world of rock are hit n miss! I guess Styx perhaps thought like so many bands that these are the  kind of records that the public will eat it up!

Nope….not all the time.

It was DeYoung’s idea for the Kilroy album. Full out concept album and  it takes one listen now in 2018 to realize why Styx imploded! Kilroy was DeYoung’s deal. He wanted it to succeed. It didn’t!

Each band member took on a different persona for the album.

James Young is ‘Dr Everett Righteous’/Tommy Shaw is ‘Jonathan Chance’/Chuck Ponazzo is ‘Lieut. Vanish/ John Ponazzo is ‘Col Hyde’.

Dennis DeYoung is………’Robert Kilroy’

The album is based around  Kilroy who was a rock star and is falsely imprisoned and makes friends with Jonathan  Chance and they plot an escape from prison!

Kinda Goofy but I guess certain substances make you do silly things!

Course everyone has heard the debut single ‘Mr Roboto’.  Which is a tune everyone knows whether you own this album or not.’ Domo Arigato,’… you all know it…

The songs that follow are a hodge podge mix of super sappy ballad’s  ‘Don’t Let It End’/’Just Get Through This Night’/’Haven’t We Been Here Before’ and bizarro rock tracks like ‘Heavy Metal Poisoning’ while the rest is more mid temp rock tracks like ‘Cold War/Double Life’.

Surprising that the mellow stuff takes up a good portion of the album. The musicianship is top-notch as you expect but the album is kinda ummm weird! A  eleven   minute video was also  made for this album which I have never seen so if you have…let me know!

Also read that when Styx hit the road to support Kilroy,Tommy and Dennis would do a little a bit of acting in-between the Kilroy numbers in the set which must have been wild to witness live  especially if you were at the show drinking beer and smoking dope and here’s two guys reenacting Kilroy before your eyes! HAHA!

I could only imagine the huge rows of arguments that the band had internally over this album! I read that the label wanted to release the Shaw ballad “Haven’t We Been Here Before” but Tommy refused to have it released so the label went with a DeYoung track ‘High Time’ instead.

Too be fair Kilroy is one of those albums for the collection. It’s cool to have as its a great discussion piece as well it’s  fun to share some of these tracks with my daughter Lexie who is 19 years old!

I will give Styx credit as with their previous albums they went all out with the Gatefold sleeve(lyrics and pics)and made a cool looking package and Kilroy is no different.

In case you were wondering this supplement for protective sleeves came as an insert so if you need any let me know…

 

 

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