Styx Announces Massive Vinyl Box Set

Styx's best-known albums will be reissued in an eight-disc vinyl box set that recasts their A&M Records releases together on 180-gram heavyweight vinyl.

Styx: The A&M Albums 1975-1984 begins with 1975's transitional Equinox, which earned Styx its second U.S. Top 30 hit with the Dennis DeYoung-sung “Lorelei,” even as original guitarist John Curulewski departed. Crystal Ball followed in 1976 and served as the debut for Tommy Shaw, who sang Styx's Top 40 hit “Mademoiselle.” The 1977 follow up The Grand Illusion, home to DeYoung's “Come Sail Away” and Shaw's “Fooling Yourself,” is the band’s most successful album to date, having sold more than three million albums in the U.S. alone.

Pieces of Eight, issued in 1978, likewise went triple-platinum, boasting the Shaw-sung hits “Blue Collar Man” and “Renegade.” DeYoung's charttopping "Babe" could be found on the more pop-leaning Cornerstone, from 1979. Paradise Theater, which followed in 1981, became Styx's lone No. 1 album – and the last of four straight triple-platinum releases – on the strength of DeYoung’s “The Best of Times” and Shaw’s “Too Much Time on My Hands.”

Kilroy Was Here spawned a pair of Top 10 hits in "Mr. Roboto" and "Don't Let it End," and sold a million copies, but led to a splintering of the classic-era lineup. Styx would go on an extended hiatus after 1984's double-live release Caught in the Act, before reforming in the '90s.

All of them now find a home together again on Styx: The A&M Albums 1975-1984, due May 12. Each title will also be available separately as part of Universal's “Back to Black” vinyl reissue series.