Styx

One With Everything (2006)

  1. Blue Collar Man
  2. One With Everything
  3. It Don't Make Sense (You Can't Make Peace)
  4. I Am the Walrus
  5. Just Be
  6. Fooling Yourself
  7. A Criminal Mind
  8. Everything, All the Time
  9. Too Much Time on My Hands
  10.Crystal Ball
  11.Miss America
  12.Boat on the River
  13.Renegade
 

By this point, it’s pretty clear the guys probably *wanted* to put out a proper studio album, but the cold, hard reality of the music biz (read: no money) likely got in the way. So instead, in what feels like a last-ditch effort to keep the cash flowing and the brand name circulating, they went rummaging through the barrel for anything that might generate interest. And thus we get yet another live album — honestly, I’ve lost count at this point — but this one comes with a twist.

This time around, they’ve teamed up with the “Contemporary Youth Orchestra” out of Cleveland, Ohio. Points for at least attempting something different, I guess. But does it work? Not really. While the idea sounds appealing in theory — a veteran rock band playing with a full-blown youth symphony — in practice, the result is more of a novelty than a revelation. If the band is so hellbent on shaking off the pop sheen and rebranding themselves as a hard rock act, adding strings and choirs to Blue Collar Man isn’t exactly the right step. If anything, it only makes the song feel more overplayed — and let’s be honest, it was already long past the saturation point.

Still, there’s an effort here. And to their credit, they do toss in a couple of new things just to keep the fans from feeling completely short-changed. The new studio track Just Be is actually pretty solid — a thoughtful, melodic piece that shows there’s still gas in the tank when they want to put it to use. The other one, Everything, All the Time, is a bit more forgettable — not terrible, just nothing you’ll remember once it’s over.

Overall, this one’s worth a listen or two, especially if you’re curious about what Styx sounds like with a high school orchestra behind them. But as with so many of their post-DeYoung live albums, it’s not something you’ll find yourself revisiting often. Once the novelty wears off, what’s left is more or less what we’ve heard before — only this time with a cello section.

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