THE GRAND ILLUSION
The Grand Illusion is the seventh studio album by Styx, released on July 7, 1977. It launched the band to stardom, spawning the hit singles “Come Sail Away” and “Fooling Yourself”, and selling over three million copies in the US. According to keyboardist Dennis DeYoung, the album’s theme was the struggle to overcome self-deluding superficiality in order to affirm one’s genuine value. (More from Wikipedia)
An interesting thing about progressive rock bands is that most of them did not hit the ball out of the park with their first album, the way that King Crimson and Boston did. As I noted in my last post, the first hit songs for Yes came on their third album, The Yes Album. Journey didn’t make any real noise on the music scene until vocalist Steve Perry joined up for the fourth album, Infinity. The breakthrough album for Styx, The Grand Illusion was their seventh album. Leftoverture was the album that put Kansas on the map, their fourth album. With Trillion though, the band was never given the opportunity to develop an audience or to refine their sound.
(October 2012)
