Chicago rock mainstays Styx had been showing on the US charts for 5 years by the point they launched their seventh studio album. However The Grand Phantasm was the one that actually took them into the premier division of album rock and gave them solely their second Prime 10 pop hit in “Come Sail Away.”
The band’s sophomore album, 1973’s Styx II, had turned gold of their residence nation inside just a few months of its belated chart look two years later. The albums they’d launched within the interim, The Serpent Is Rising and Man of Miracles, made solely modest showings on the Billboard LP chart. However momentum was gained with 1975’s Equinox, which once more turned gold inside a few years. In 1976, Crystal Ball marked the arrival of guitarist Tommy Shaw and gave them a Prime 40 single in “Mademoiselle.”
But it surely was The Grand Phantasm that put Styx within the platinum stratosphere. “With each album this five-piece group continues to refine its act,” wrote Billboard. “Grand Illusion is its most mature creation as this concept LP is an existentialist commentary on the human condition.” It entered the American bestsellers on July 30, 1977 at No.123, the primary of an epic 127 weeks on the survey, by far the band’s best-ever run.
Billboard additionally gave an enthusiastic evaluation to the August 13 cease on the band’s new tour, on the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, with company Mink DeVille. “The quality hard rock came non stop,” wrote Tom Cech, “shifting gears occasionally to convey a variety of moods throughout the 14 numbers.” Shaw’s interaction all through the present with fellow guitarist James Younger was additionally famous.
In September, “Come Sail Away” began its personal prolonged Scorching 100 voyage, which took it to No.8 within the new 12 months and helped the album to its first, gold certification the next month. By December, The Grand Phantasm was platinum, and in February 1978 it provided up a second chart single in “Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man),” which reached No.29.
Styx could have been named after an underworld river, however their success was now undeniably overground. In 1984, The Grand Phantasm went double and triple platinum on the identical time.
Purchase Styx’s music on vinyl or CD now.
