Pieces of Eight (1978)
1.Great White Hope
2.I'm O.K.
3.Sing For The Day
4.The Message
5.Lords of the Ring
6.Blue Collar Man
7.Queen of Spades
8.Renegade
9.Pieces of Eight
10.Aku-Aku
Following the staggering success of The Grand Illusion—which moved 3.5 million copies—Styx made the perfectly understandable decision not to tamper with the formula. Pieces of Eight arrives like a sonic doppelgänger of its predecessor, cut from the same cloth stylistically and nearly identical in construction. No bold new directions here, just more of what worked last time: straightforward rockers seasoned lightly with synthesizer gloss, a stray pipe organ, and a dreamy instrumental fadeout for good measure. It's a patchwork that shouldn’t work twice, yet it does—and in the minds of some, perhaps even better than the first go-round.
Despite being the only album during their commercial prime to lack a top-ten single, it hardly matters. Everyone knows Blue Collar Man and Renegade, Tommy Shaw’s twin missiles of classic rock perfection. These tracks alone justify the album’s stature. Shaw’s rising star is impossible to miss here, and Dennis DeYoung, although relegated slightly more to the sidelines, still makes vital contributions. I’m O.K. sees DeYoung dueling with a thunderous cathedral pipe organ, while the criminally underappreciated Queen of Spades (co-written with James Young) simmers with menace and mystery. The opening track, Great White Hope, explodes out of the gate in true James Young fashion—raw, aggressive, and suspiciously “live”-sounding, as if the studio itself were teetering on its foundations.
Styx couldn’t resist dipping back into their Tolkien-tinged fantasy bag, and DeYoung’s Lords of the Ring fills the void that Castle Walls left on the last album—a synthesizer-heavy epic that conjures dragons, swords, and sequined robes. Shaw's Sing For the Day stands as this record’s spiritual cousin to Fooling Yourself, complete with lightning-quick acoustic guitars and a barrage of DeYoung’s trademark keys. The album’s penultimate moment, the title track Pieces of Eight, sounds like an echo from the previous record: “The search for the money tree / Don’t cash your freedoms in for gold.” It’s less a lyric than a mission statement.
Though DeYoung’s fingerprints are on much of the album, this is unquestionably Shaw’s moment. Years later, Dennis would admit he wasn’t wholly satisfied with the final product—perhaps because he sensed the tide was turning. This was the last time Styx would deliver a pure-blooded rock album. The polished, pop-oriented direction that followed would net them millions of new fans while quietly fraying the band’s internal dynamics. Pieces of Eight marked the end of an era—when Styx still played with grit in their teeth and amplifiers turned all the way up. The best of times were coming... and so were the worst.
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