Styx - Cornerstone
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CD Details
Artist: StyxBrand: CORNERSTONE
Edition: Music CD
Published: 1990
CD Release Date: 1990-10-25
Music Label: A&M
Soundtracks:
- Lights
- Why Me
- Babe
- Never Say Never
- Boat On The River
- Borrowed Time
- First Time
- Eddie
- Love In The Midnight
Music reviews of Cornerstone
Music Review: A very good transitional album for Styx
Rating: 5 Stars
Styx's ninth album Cornerstone was released in September of 1979.
The album is best remembered for singer/keyboard player/chief songwriter Dennis DeYoung's musical love-letter to his wife called "Babe". This song was Styx's first and only No. 1 hit and it helped the band get their third album in a row to Triple Platinum status and the first Top 3 charting album for the band peaking at #2 and it wouldn't be their last.
Led by Babe as well as the following Top 40 single, Dennis' classic about one's worries "Why Me" (which should have been Nancy Kerrigan's theme song from her attack at the hands of Tonya Harding), introduced us to a poppier sounding Styx (fellow prog rock band Genesis had changed their sound at that time as well yet no one complained).
The album experiments with some new sounds as well like horns, strings and conflicting musical styles as the brand of art rock Styx perfected was seen as dying and/or already out of style by 1979 thanks to New Wave and Punk changing the rock landscape.
Singer/guitarist/songwriter Tommy Shaw's "Boat on the River" was a great folk song which showed Tommy was not just full of rock music (like he claimed on Behind the Music) and could have been written by a European folk performer and the song almost didn't get released as band manager Derek Sutton said the song was deplorable but Dennis DeYoung told Tommy Shaw let's record it and it became the band's biggest European hit to this day.
Dennis and Tommy's collaborations were in full flow here as the two co-wrote the opening "Lights" which had Tommy on vocal (Dennis' music and Tommy's lyrics) and the hard rocking "Borrowed Time" (music by Tommy, lyrics from Dennis) which had Dennis on vocal and one of his best rock vocals ever and was the opening song on the Cornerstone/Grand Decathlon tour in 1979/80 and serve as first encore on the band's 1981/82 tour.
Dennis also contributed the ballad "First Time", which would have been a huge hit had if Tommy not complained like a 2-year old by threatening to walk out if it was released. First Time would have been a #1 if released.
Guitarist James "JY" Young wrote the scathing hard rocker "Eddie" about famed Massachusetts senator Edward Kennedy, the last surviving of the Kennedy sons.
Tommy also had the melodic "Never Say Never" and the closing epic "Love in the Midnight" which started as a "Crystal Ball" part two with acoustic guitars and Fender Rhodes piano but turns into one of the best Styx tracks ever with a blazing JY solo and haunting orchestrations at the end.
Many fans scoff at this album but I like it alot, even today and still sounds great 28 years after its release.
I highly recommend Cornerstone!
Description of Cornerstone
Japanese-only SHM-CD (Super High Material CD) paper sleeve pressing of this album. SHM-CDs can be played on any audio player and delivers unbelievably high-quality sound. You won't believe it's the same CD! Universal. 2009.If Styx didn't do enough to endear itself to a generation of prom-goers with its 1975 slow-dance classic "Lady," they closed the deal a few years later with Cornerstone's premiere hit, "Babe." Perhaps the prototypical I-love-you-but-I-just-gotta-go power ballad, the song was Styx's first No. 1 hit, and it propelled the album to platinum-plus status. Led by that track as well as "Why Me," another Top 40 hit, Cornerstone is Styx at their most accessible and melodic. The album experiments with some new sounds as well, with horns added to the mix on Dennis DeYoung's "Borrowed Time" and "Why Me" and mandolin on Tommy Shaw's "Boat on the River." If their album sales didn't offer the final word on the band's popularity at the close of the '70s, a 1979 Gallup poll did the trick: The group was named America's most popular rock band. It's you babe, indeed. --Daniel Durchholz
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