Styx and Stones

To be perfectly honest, the reason I’m doing a Rolling Stones song today is because I also decided to do a song by Styx and then the title of this blogpost occurred to me. Typically I have a stronger experience or connection to my decision based on the week I’ve been having. Not in this case. Oh well.

The Rolling Stones are truthfully not one of my very favorite bands. I respect them, but compared to other bands producing hits in the late 60s and early 70s (such as The Beatles, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin), I don’t love their sound or messaging. However, they are a noteworthy band in rock and roll history, and I’ve enjoyed playing a few of their songs on piano. The prime example:

This is “Loving Cup” from the Stones’ 1972 album Exile On Main Street. I have a lot of personal experience with this song. About five years ago, I started re-teaching myself piano with songs that I personally loved to play and sing (I say re-teaching because, like so many people, I went through the elementary school piano lessons that didn’t last because I was so bored). After seeing another one of my favorite bands cover “Loving Cup” in a live show of theirs, I sat down, worked out the opening piano riff, and learned to play the song. As one of the earliest songs I taught myself to play, along with Beatles classics like “Let it Be” and “Hey Jude”, “Loving Cup” is one of my longest running songs to play and sing with, and hearing it always takes me back to my excitement at beginning to sound like a serviceable musician on some of my favorite songs.

Now, I’m gonna move forward to the late 1970s and talk about a more personal favorite band: Styx. I didn’t know a lot about Styx for much of my life, and up until my Senior year of high school I thought they were pretty much just another random heavy metal rock group whose songs I’d never appreciate very much. I’m not exactly sure where that notion came from, but pretty much none of it ended up being true. As soon as I was introduced to their 1977 album The Grand Illusion, I was hooked. The song I’m going to talk about from them today is off of Pieces of Eight, which essentially served as the year-later sequel to The Grand Illusion. I’m still not sure I expect many people my age to know “Renegade”, but it is one of the more widely known songs I’ll ever write about.

This is one of those songs that feels like it’s going to be epic from the very start, with that lone voice rising out of silence. One thing you might recognize among many of my favorite songs is that I am an absolute sucker for good harmonies, so to bring in that three-part a cappella harmony shortly afterward already puts a smile on my face. From there on out, “Renegade” is a well-executed rock song, not necessarily anything hugely special from a composition standpoint, but extremely well produced, overflowing with energy, and representing the iconic synth sound that Styx employs so well. A note about synthesizers: I *love* late 70s synthesizers. I’m sorry if you’re a classic 80s music fan, but I am definitely one of those people who tends to hate classic 80s music (notable exceptions include Prince’s Purple Rain and most of the things that Queen put out in the 80s). I see the golden age of synthesizers as the late 70s and early 80s, best represented on albums like The Grand Illusion, Leftoverture (fantastic album by Kansas, with a fantastic title too) and Breakfast in America (hey look at that, I’ve managed to force a Supertramp reference into yet another blogpost). Ok I am officially off-topic. I’ll stop now.

Hope everyone is having a good week!