Styx

Come Sail Away: The Styx Anthology (2004)

Disc One 
  1.Best Thing
  2.You Need Love
  3.Lady
  4.Winner Takes All
  5.Rock and Roll Feeling
  6.Light Up
  7.Lorelei
  8.Prelude 12
  9.Suite Madame Blue
 10.Shooz
 11.Mademoiselle
 12.Crystal Ball
 13.The Grand Illusion
 14.Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man)
 15.Come Sail Away
 16.Miss America
 17.Man in the Wilderness

Disc Two
  1.Blue Collar Man
  2.Sing For the Day
  3.Renegade
  4.Pieces of Eight
  5.Lights
  6.Babe
  7.Borrowed Time
  8.Boat on the River
  9.A.D. 1928
 10.Rockin' the Paradise
 11.Too Much Time On My Hands
 12.The Best of Times
 13.Snowblind
 14.Mr. Roboto
 15.Love is the Ritual
 16.Show Me the Way
 17.Dear John
 18.One With Everything

Styx somehow manages to fumble this one—badly. At first glance, a 2-disc anthology might seem like a good idea. After all, they had released a couple of albums since the last two Greatest Hits sets, and maybe the thought was to consolidate everything into one solid retrospective. In theory, that makes some sense. But once again, the execution falls apart.

The most glaring issue here isn’t what’s included—it’s what’s not. Anyone who had followed the band even casually knew by now that the tension between Dennis DeYoung and the rest of the group (namely Tommy Shaw and James “J.Y.” Young) was no longer backroom rumor. Every time J.Y. opened his mouth in an interview, it seemed like he couldn’t help but throw a jab in Dennis' direction. And it stopped being amusing long ago. What’s truly inexcusable, however, is when that bitterness spills into the band’s history—and attempts are made to rewrite it.

Yes, DeYoung wrote the ballads. Yes, he liked the theatrical stuff. But let’s not forget—he also wrote the hits. Excluding songs like First Time or Don’t Let It End isn’t some bold artistic decision. It’s petty. And for a band that owes its longevity to a fanbase that fell in love with those exact songs, it’s an insult. It’s not like there was a time crunch either—they had two full discs to work with. Instead, we get obscure early cuts from the Wooden Nickel era (do we really need five of them?) and deep album tracks like Shooz and Man in the Wilderness.

The result is a collection that looks good on the surface, but doesn’t quite taste right when you take a bite. Sure, there’s still a lot of good music here. It’s hard not to enjoy anything from this band’s golden years. But if you’re looking for a true, objective summary of Styx at their best, you’d be better off sticking with the two Greatest Hits volumes. At least those didn’t come with an axe to grind.

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