CORNERSTONE

This is the low point in the up and down world of Styx music. Coming off a smokin' rock album (Pieces of Eight), dove headlong into the bland corporate pop world head first. The band here is hardly recognizable as Styx! There are a few nice tunes here, but something happened between albums that the band never really recovered from. The mark of Dennis DeYoung is all over the album, and it's a Dennis DeYoung moving quickly away from the prog/rock roots that the band had planted to this point in their career.

Granted, the ballad 'Babe' probably still has the band eating steak for dinner every night to this day, but whatever happened to the band's studio career from this point on, they were never the same band on record. Live, of course, Styx has always kicked butt - even at this low point in their career. But Cornerstone marked a turning point in the life of Styx, and not a good one.