Top 10 Most Underrated Styx Songs

I am a Styx junkie from the late '70s and '80s, and notwithstanding all their great songs from my era, "A Day," which features the late John Curulewski (Tommy Shaw's predecessor), tops my list.

It's a psychedelic "Come Sail Away" from an earlier era of Styx music. Give yourself a treat and head over to YouTube to listen to it now!

I still cannot believe they did not release this as a single. Aside from it not fitting the "rock opera" theme of "Kilroy Was Here" perfectly, wouldn't that make it a great standalone tune?

It was poppy yet edgy, with DY and JY, and would have hit the charts. It has a little of everything Styx: this time, JY on lead vocals with the signature backup vocals of Tommy, DY, et al., hypnotic keyboards (and horns?), and haunting guitar.

I have peeked at the Top-10 list of Styx songs over the years. While this tune is a diamond embedded deep in the clay of the embankment of Styx, I am in total disbelief that it took as long as it did to make the list. The 75th song? No way. It would be at least at the back end of this late '70s/'80s Styx aficionado's top 10.

Always going to be stuck behind a few other great, more popular Styx songs on best-of lists, but there is an argument to be made that it is Styx's #1 song of all time.

Also, you have to love the Styx songs, like "Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)," with the alternate, parenthetical titles.

Often gets disrespected because JY is not on it, and it is a love song. But hey, it was Styx's one Top-40 Billboard #1 song, something (shockingly, mind you) most (all, I think) of these '70s, '80s hard rock bands (Journey, Boston, Kansas, Rush, etc.) never had.

In any event, it is way better than the love song "Don't Let it End," which is one of my least favorite Styx songs.

The "grand illusion" is that this song does not rank higher many years later, no less in its time. It is no illusion that you cannot stop listening to this song once you have started playing it.

It has some of the coolest old-school synthesizers going on!

Come on, you're "fooling yourself" if you don't totally dig this tune! Seriously, you'd have to be an "angry young man" not to like this song.

Okay, enough of the cheesy puns. Tommy Shaw at his best certainly indicates Styx at their best, but this tune suffers a similar fate as "Blue Collar Man." Also, like the latter, it has that alternate, parenthetical title.

This is the fun tune that opens Styx's best-of live concert, "Caught in the Act." Quite campy, a bit corny, but definitely catchy.

That said, on a serious note, it does have an ingenious self-referential message against corporate music and the consumerism of the day. Unlike the rest of the album, it is not a recording of a live concert performance. It was the one studio recording they did for the album.

It has a fun, quirky video that goes with it as well. This is a forgotten Styx tune for sure, but a pleasant surprise when you give it a listen. It's way catchier than it is given credit for, so much so that it overcomes its undeniable campiness and corniness. It even made the Top 40 back in '84, just making it at #40!

I am in the Class of '89. This was our yearbook/graduation/prom class song, and I kind of made it happen in a minor high school scandal of sorts. I was a big wig on student council and actively campaigned for it - was encouraged to - over a love song the girls LOVED. That song was either Paul Young's "Everytime You Go Away" or Richard Marx's "Right Here Waiting," I think. The boys loathed the thought of it.

Well, the boys won, and it was still "the best of times" for everyone (though the girls were very pissed off for a minute). In any event, 'tis another song that suffers a fate similar to "Blue Collar Man" and "Fooling Yourself."