Artist: STYX
Album: PARADISE THEATRE (CD US-IMPORT)

Release date: 1980
EAN/UPS: 0075021324022
Media type: CD

Paradise Theatre is a concept album released by the rock band Styx in January 1981 (see 1981 in music).

The album, a fictional account of Chicago's Paradise Theater from its opening to closing (and eventual abandonment), is used as a metaphor for America's changing times from the late 1970s into the 1980s (group leader Dennis DeYoung confirmed this on an episode of In the Studio with Redbeard which devoted an entire episode to the making of the album).

The signature song, "The Best of Times" (written by group leader Dennis DeYoung), went all the way to #3 and "Too Much Time on My Hands" written by Tommy Shaw went to #9 (and was Shaw's only top 10 hit for Styx). Rockin' The Paradise went to #8 on the Top Rock Track Chart.

The song "Snowblind" (lyrics by James Young, music by Young as DeYoung) was an attack on drug addiction. The track would come under fire for supposedly having backward messages and be branded by reactionary fundamentalists and Tipper Gore's PMRC as "Satanistic." JY and DeYoung refuted this on the In the Studio episode. Other impartial sources have also said that the claim of Satanic messages on this record as being completely false.

Paradise Theatre became Styx's first, and to date only US #1 album, as well the band's fourth consecutive triple-platinum album.

TRACKLIST:

"A.D. 1928" (DeYoung) – 1:07
"Rockin' the Paradise" (DeYoung, Shaw, Young) – 3:35
"Too Much Time on My Hands" (Shaw) – 4:31
"Nothing Ever Goes As Planned" (DeYoung) – 4:46
"The Best of Times" (DeYoung) – 4:17
"Lonely People" (DeYoung) – 5:22
"She Cares" (Shaw) – 4:18
"Snowblind" (DeYoung, Young) – 4:48
"Half-Penny, Two-Penny" (Brandle, Young) – 4:34
"A.D. 1958" (DeYoung) – 2:31
"State Street Sadie" (instrumental)(DeYoung) – 0:27

LINE-UP:

Dennis DeYoung - keyboards, vocals
Chuck Panozzo - bass
John Panozzo - drums, percussion
Tommy Shaw - guitars, vocals, vocoder
James Young - guitars, vocals

Additional personnel:
Dan Barber - horn
Steve Eisen - saxophone
Mike Halpin - horn
John Haynor - horn
Mark Ohlson - horn
Billy Simpson - horn