Paradise Theatre was Styx’s 10th album, a concept album chronicling the imagined historical rise and fall of the Chicago Paradise Theatre* (and according to Wiki this was a metaphor for the changes in American society in the late 70′s). It also became the band’s most successful record, hitting #1 on the US album charts with several strong singles. Those singles are also the songs I like the most. The epic and anthemic lite-prog rock track “The Best of Times” was the first single from Paradise Theatre and it went to #3 on the US charts. The second single, “Too Much Time on My Hands,” is my favorite from the album and it hit #9 on the US Hot 100 chart and #2 on the Top Rock Tracks chart. (A couple of years ago Jimmy Fallon and Paul Rudd did a hilarious and spot-on re-creation of the song’s video.) I only vaguely remember the third single, “Nothing Ever Goes as Planned,” which isn’t surprising since it only went to #54 in the US. I do remember the final single, “Rockin’ the Paradise,” which went to #8 on the Billboard Rock Chart. It was also the 10th video aired by MTV when it launched in August ‘81. The rest of the album is kind of bland, again a commercially palatable, prog rock lite sound (though “Snowblind” is super-proggy and “Half-Penny, Two-Penny” is pretty rollicking), technically competent but not much heft or soul to keep me thoroughly engaged for the whole album, which is kind of the point of AOR. Apparently the band was in the midst of some bitter fighting during the writing and recording of Paradise Theatre, with competing songwriters and divergent directions, which explains some of the unevenness of the album’s concept and delivery.

*Since originally posting this, a friend of mine mentioned that her mom used to work as a candy girl at the real Paradise Theatre in Chicago, I’m guessing in the 50′s.

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Allmusic says about the album “By condensing the sonic explorations of Meddle to actual songs and adding a lush, immaculate production to their trippiest instrumental sections, Pink Floyd inadvertently designed their commercial breakthrough with Dark Side of the Moon. The primary revelation of Dark Side of the Moon is what a little focus does for the band. Roger Waters wrote a series of songs about mundane, everyday details which aren’t that impressive by themselves, but when given the sonic backdrop of Floyd’s slow, atmospheric soundscapes and carefully placed sound effects, they achieve an emotional resonance. But what gives the album true power is the subtly textured music, which evolves from ponderous, neo-psychedelic art rock to jazz fusion and blues-rock before turning back to psychedelia. It’s dense with detail, but leisurely paced, creating its own dark, haunting world. Pink Floyd may have better albums than Dark Side of the Moon, but no other record defines them quite as well as this one.”

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Permanent Waves was Rush’s seventh studio release and it hit #3 in Canada and the UK, #4 in the US. The first two tracks are the ones I’m most familiar with as both were released as singles: “The Spirit of Radio” which hit #13 in the UK, #22 in Canada and #51 in the US; and “Freewill.” “Entre Nous” was also released as the final single from the LP. Allmusic says about Permanent Waves, “By 1980’s Permanent Waves, the modern sounds of new wave (the Police, Peter Gabriel, etc.) began to creep into Rush’s sound, but the trio still kept their hard rock roots intact. The new approach paid off – two of their most popular songs, the ‘make a difference’ anthem “Freewill,” and a tribute to the Toronto radio station CFNY, “The Spirit of Radio,” are spectacular highlights. Also included were two epics, the stormy ”Jacob’s Ladder“ and the album-closing ”Natural Science,“ which contains a middle section that contains elements of reggae. Geddy Lee also began singing in a slightly lower register around this time, which made their music more accessible to fans outside of the heavy prog rock circle. The album proved to be the final breakthrough Rush needed to become an arena headliner throughout the world, beginning a string of albums that would reach inside the Top Five of the U.S. Billboard album charts.”

**So I either saw Rush play at Alpine Valley in either June 1990 or June 1992. I looked at the setlists for both shows but this was of no help whatsoever because I don’t remember much beyond the parking lot. My friend Eric drove me and our friends Mike and Steve from Madison to the rolling hills of Wisconsin south of Milwaukee on a gorgeous summer afternoon. Upon arrival we proceeded to slam a bunch of beer, probably Budweiser which was Mike’s beer of choice, while loitering around the car because it was cheaper than buying beer inside and I know I was underage, not sure if the rest of the group was or not. So I was pretty drunk before we even got to our lawn “seats.” I think  we met up with some other friends and at least a few them fired up a joint or two. Between that smell, the cheap beer and the laser show, I ended up spending the concert quietly puking on the lawn, neatly covering up my mess with a discarded nacho tray. Blech. I vaguely remember Rush playing “Tom Sawyer” but the rest is lost to me.

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13 was a record company-driven project, released for the Christmas shopping season of 1970. From Allmusic, “The success and continued popularity of 13 over the years was a perfect illustration of the way in which the Doors (and their record label) successfully manipulated the group’s image in two distinctly different directions. 13 presented the Doors’ most accessible, AM radio-friendly music, even bypassing their rather daring debut single, “Break On Through,” in favor of the much more popular “Light My Fire” – anyone hearing this stuff would perceive the band as an edgy pop/rock outfit with the most intensely brooding vocals this side of Elvis Presley and lots of great tunes and better playing. The reality was a lot more complicated – the Doors were a challenging, often disturbing, and very serious musical entity, and a big chunk of their work, especially in concert (which was arguably what they were really about), was much more R-rated than the material on 13 would lead you to expect, trading in fierce sexual imagery, sophisticated philosophical ideas, and coarse, even ribald sensibilities worthy of the best bluesmen, all wrapped around a unique blend of poetry and blues, R&B, and jazz-inspired rock. Indeed, one begins to fully appreciate, listening to what almost amounts to the “Doors-lite” sensibilities of this collection, just how much of the group’s success, commercial and artistic, was predicated on this split, with a certain percentage of those millions of listeners of the singles making the leap, crossing over to the more serious side of their work and taking in those albums as well as the concerts. Subsequent compilations would mix the two sides more freely, and, ironically enough, later in the same year as the release of 13, Elektra offered the first formal glimpse of that more serious side of the Doors’ music with the concert album Absolutely Live; the latter, even with its carefully airbrushed cover shot of lead singer Jim Morrison – by then very scruffy looking with his beard – would totally miss the mass appeal enjoyed by 13, with its focus on blues pieces and decidedly adult works such as “Build Me a Woman.” The latter quickly started turning up in cutout bins, while 13 remained popular for almost two decades, and became – along with the group’s self-titled debut album – the most common first Doors album purchased by fans, this despite the fact that it was released too early to contain their last two singles, “Love Her Madly” and “Riders on the Storm” (which made it onto the more FM-oriented Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine two years later).

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Sticky Fingers rates high on many best-of lists and hit #1 in several countries, including the UK and the US where it remained for 4 weeks soon after its release. The Rolling Stones issued two singles from the LP: “Brown Sugar” (UK #2 and US #1) and the mournfully beautiful “Wild Horses” which only came out in the US where it charted at #28. I like those songs, of course, but also among my favorites are the cover of traditional gospel “You Gotta Move” (the Stones credit Fred McDowell’s version), “Bitch,” “Sister Morphine” which Keith Richards and Mick Jagger co-wrote with Marianne Faithfull (she released the track first in 1969 as the b-side to “Something Better” and it was rerecorded for Sticky Fingers) and most especially “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” which I first got obsessed with during my senior year of college when my roommate and I would blast it, singing along at top-volume, windows open, in our shitty apartment.

Yeah, you got satin shoes
Yeah, you got plastic boots
Y’all got cocaine eyes
Yeah, you got speed-freak jive

Can’t you hear me knockin’ on your window
Can’t you hear me knockin’ on your door
Can’t you hear me knockin’ down your dirty street
Yeah

Help me baby, ain’t no stranger
Help me baby, ain’t no stranger
Help me baby, ain’t no stranger

Can’t you hear me knockin’, ahh, are you safe asleep?
Can’t you hear me knockin’, yeah, down the gaslight street, now
Can’t you hear me knockin’, yes, throw me down the keys
Alright now

Hear me ringing big bell tolls
Hear me singing soft and low
I’ve been begging on my knees
I’ve been kickin’, help me please

Hear me prowlin’, I’m gonna take you down
Hear me growlin’, yeah, I’ve got flatted feet now now now now
Hear me howlin’, I’m all, all around your street now
Hear me knockin’, and all, all around your town

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Ziggy Stardust was Bowie’s biggest album to that point in his career; after entering the charts at #10, it reached #5 in the UK and hit #75 in the US. Considered one of the greatest records ever, it is included in the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry. The single “Starman” (with its b-side “Suffragette City”) hit #10 in the UK and #65 in the US. The other single released from Ziggy Stardust, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide,” just went to #22 in the UK after its belated release in 1974, a move RCA made in anticipation of Bowie’s upcoming Diamond Dogs LP.

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