Complete Wooden Nickel Recordings

Styx - Complete Wooden Nickel Recordings

Complete Wooden Nickel Recordings
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CD Details

Artist: Styx
Edition: Music CD
Format: Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2005-02-15
Music Label: Hip-O Records
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
  1. Movement For The Common Man
  2. Right Away
  3. What Has Come Between Us
  4. Best Thing
  5. Quick Is The Beat Of My Heart
  6. After You Leave Me
  7. You Need Love
  8. Lady
  9. A Day
  10. You Better Ask
  11. Little Fugue In "G"
  12. Father O.S.A.
  13. Earl Of Roseland
  14. I'm Gonna Make You Feel It
  15. Unfinished Song
Music CD 2
  1. Witch Wolf
  2. The Grove Of Eglantine
  3. Young Man
  4. As Bad As This
  5. Winner Takes All
  6. 22 Years
  7. Jonas Psalter
  8. The Serpent Is Rising
  9. Krakatoa
  10. Hallelujah Chorus
  11. Rock & Roll Feeling
  12. Havin' A Ball
  13. Golden Lark
  14. A Song For Suzanne
  15. A Man Like Me
  16. Lies
  17. Evil Eyes
  18. Southern Woman
  19. Christopher, Mr. Christopher
  20. Man Of Miracles

Music reviews of Complete Wooden Nickel Recordings

Music Review: 3/4 good
Rating: 4 Stars

Out of the 4 early albums contained in this 2 CD set, there is the equivalent of about 3 good albums. Oddly, there was no clear pattern evident about either increasing or decreasing quality as time went on with this band. The first album is fairly short and deserves to be split in half, with its second half (4 songs) quite solid, if not quite as densely composed and produced as later Styx works. Most disappointing to progressive rock fans is the "long" Movement for the Common Man, which is a loose pastiche of 4 disparate elements - the most substantive of which is the soft DeYoung ballad, "Mother Nature's Matinee." The album is from 1972.

Styx II is by far the best album of the early Styx, and unfortunately, people's attention seems overly fixated upon their first radio hit, "Lady," which appeared on this album. The opening track, however, entitled "You Need Love," is a densely compact and impressive work with non-stop energy, and the 8.5 minute "Father O.S.A" (including an introductory fugue by Bach) is surely the best of the group's early attempts at lengthy epics. A very nice softer work, "A Day," with a fast instrumental section in its center, another dense and energetic song "Earl of Roseland" with lots of catchy melodies, and a less innovative but still lively short song round out this strong 1973 album - definitely their best until Equinox (and better than the subsequent Crystal Ball album), was the highlight of their early period and alone is quite possibly worth the cost of this set.

Also from 1973, "The Serpent is Rising" is a step down, replacing most of the band's progressive rock efforts with James Young driven rockers. Nevertheless, the bulk of it contains some strong material, and I would personally only adjust or ignore or remove 2 to 3 minutes from each half of the album. Most songs are fairly straightforward, although musically competent, and "Young Man" stands out as superior both in terms of its lyric theme and its composition and instrumental work by the band. Grove of Eglantine balances this with DeYoung's characteristic atmospheres. The final, pleasant song in the first half, however, is rudely interrupted by an unnamed track (the Plexiglass Toilet) whose primary function will be to serve as an embarrassing juvenile gimmick at drunken parties and among those with low tastes.... Truly Styx never got "As Bad As This" anywhere but on this album. Also quite embarrassing and deserving of removal is an unnecessary Styx version of part of Handel's "Hallelujah" chorus. The second half of the album, which includes the dramatic and impressive songs "Jonas Psalter" and "The Serpent is Rising" should instead be re-organized so that the menacing tones from "Krakatoa" are used as an introduction to "Serpent." The album is much improved in quality by removing several minutes from each side and reversing the order of tracks 9 and 8 in this way. However, there is still a full 1970s album (~35 minutes) remaining after those adjustments.

With 1974's Man of Miracles, however, we unfortunately again have only half an album of solid Styx material. There are fully 5 short songs that are quite pedestrian in their straightforward presentation of fast but unimpressive verse-refrain work. The core of the album's real contributions consists of the DeYoung duo, "Golden Lark - A Song For Suzanne" on the first half, and also the DeYoung-shaped parts of the second half: "Evil Eyes," "Christopher, Mr. Christopher," and "Man of Miracles." The 5 additional short songs feel utterly trivial, regardless of how well the instrumentals might have been performed at certain points.

Thus, removing half of the first and 4th albums results in a very solid and enjoyable listening experience and provides the equivalent of 3 good albums from Styx's early years. The bonus track on disc 1, "Unfinished Song," is actually a completed work that was originally the B-side for a "Young Man" single, and is a solid-enough DeYoung tune that it helps balance out some of the weaker efforts from this time period. Styx was truly a mixed bag of contradictory tendencies throughout its early years, until "The Grand Illusion" album of 1977 finally saw their act pulled together with consistency. Of the albums prior to that, the strongest are "Styx II" (included in this set) and "Equinox." The others all have fairly serious mis-steps and weaknesses in comparison, but are well-worth checking out so as to salvage some very good stuff. These days, it's very easy, after all, to program one's CD player or assemble the best stuff into a playlist. For the current $15 price of this set, there's definitely enough good material for Styx fans to be pleased, so long as the occasionally awful stuff that also appears here can be suitably ignored!
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