10 Worst Number One Rock Albums Of The 1980s
9. Paradise Theatre - Styx
The three weeks that Paradise Theatre spent at number one in 1981 are, at the time of writing, the only ones that the band Styx have enjoyed as chart-topping artists.
Beginning as a proggier outfit in the '70s, Styx realised that style was going out of fashion faster than ugly living room furniture. They changed with the times and incorporated more synthesisers and softer sounds into their arsenal. The end result was this album, which is still their most commercially successful to date.
The album tells one big long story about the fictional life of an actual theatre in Chicago, using the building's trajectory as a metaphor for the fluctuating state of America. A nice idea and one that was pretty well executed, but there just isn't anything special on this album to elevate it to the dizzying heights of its peers.
Paradise Theatre isn't a bad album by any stretch, and a great jumping off point for anyone looking to get into Styx, but in the busy crowd of '80s albums, it doesn't do anything that would make it stand out to anyone who didn't already know about it.