Cornerstone

Album: Cornerstone
Artist: Styx
Release Year: 1979
Genres: pop-rock, arena rock

1) Lights; 2) Why Me; 3) Babe; 4) Never Say Never; 5) Boat on the River; 6) Borrowed Time; 7) First Time; 8) Eddie; 9) Love in the Midnight.

Best Song: Love in the Midnight

Yeah, I'm reviewing a Styx album. I can already hear you guys jeering at me for sinking so low, and so early in the blog at that-- not to mention that this is quite possibly their worst album. Actually, it's third-worst, ahead of those horrendous '90s releases. This one's still tolerable. Mostly.

Anyway, despite their obvious flaws, I still like Styx, and I'm going to review this incredibly mediocre pop album. That's right, people: it is not a rock record. Only the last two songs edge anywhere near "rocking," and "Eddie" is so damn embarassing I don't even count it. Hearing James Young screech pseudo-political lyrics during a very inadequate and forced-sounding song is not my idea of good music. I'm borrowing George Starostin's term "inadequate" here, and in this case I define it thus: Imagine you've been threatened by a massive biker holding a knife. You're scrawny and weak, and you've wet yourself a little. Yet you insist he leave, or you're going to beat him to a bloody pulp. That is inadequacy. See where I'm going with this?

But I digress. The rest of the album is pretty uniform, and unfortunately, Dennis DeYoung dominates. Almost all of the songs consist of pseudo-rock melodies, stripped and watered down to make bland pop anthems. All is not lost, however-- I still have two favorites on this album. "Boat on the River" is a great, European-sounding folk ditty, which apparently was very popluar across the Atlantic. I heard a recording of them playing it in Germany. The audience went crazy. Meanwhile, "Love in the Midnight" starts out with eerie medieval verses before developing into a soaring rock anthem with some actual feeling, so I guess that's a winner too.

Of course there's "Babe," the song with which the band effectively Bieberized themselves. Worse, there's "First Time," which I'm not even going to discuss. It doesn't deserve it.

Rating: 4