Theater as Metaphor

Paradise Theatre is the tenth album by the rock band Styx, released in January 1981. A concept album, the album is a fictional account of Chicago's Paradise Theatre from its opening to closin, used as a metaphor for America's changing times from the late 1970s into the 1980s. It was the most successful album by Styx, peaking at #1 for 3 weeks on the Billboard Album Chart in April and May 1981. It was the band's fourth consecutive triple-platinum album.

Paradise Theatre is the tenth album by the rock band Styx, released in January 1981. A concept album, the album is a fictional account of Chicago's Paradise Theatre from its opening to closin, used as a metaphor for America's changing times from the late 1970s into the 1980s. It was the most successful album by Styx, peaking at #1 for 3 weeks on the Billboard Album Chart in April and May 1981. It was the band's fourth consecutive triple-platinum album.

Paradise Theatre is the tenth album by the rock band Styx, released in January 1981. A concept album, the album is a fictional account of Chicago's Paradise Theatre from its opening to closin, used as a metaphor for America's changing times from the late 1970s into the 1980s. It was the most successful album by Styx, peaking at #1 for 3 weeks on the Billboard Album Chart in April and May 1981. It was the band's fourth consecutive triple-platinum album.

Paradise Theatre is the tenth album by the rock band Styx. It was the most successful album by Styx, peaking at #1 for 3 weeks on the Billboard Album Chart in April and May 1981. The song "The Best of Times" has been featured in multiple films. Paradise Theatre became Styx's only US #1 album. It was the band's fourth consecutive triple-platinum album.

The third full-length and Atlantic Records debut from Shaina Taub, Songs of the Great Hill came to life over the course of countless daily trips to the enchanted spot of its title. In the bleakest days of lockdown, the New York City-based singer/songwriter would head to the North Woods of Central Park with notebook in hand, then set to work on the incandescent batch of songs that now comprise the album. “It felt very much like a metaphor for the time we were all living through—trying to trudge up this great big hill with some sense of grace, looking for some kind of hope in all the dread and isolation,” recalls Taub, also a multi-award-winning composer and actor in musical theater. “After a while, it felt like I was writing into existence all the songs I needed to hear.”

After successfully establishing themselves as one of America's best commercial progressive rock bands of the late '70s with albums like The Grand Illusion and Pieces of Eight, Chicago's Styx had taken a dubious step towards pop overkill with singer Dennis DeYoung's ballad "Babe." The centerpiece of 1979's uneven Cornerstone album, the number one single sowed the seeds of disaster for the group by pitching DeYoung's increasingly mainstream ambitions against the group's more conservative songwriters, Tommy Shaw and James "JY" Young. Hence, what had once been a healthy competitive spirit within the band quickly deteriorated into bitter co-existence during the sessions for 1980's Paradise Theater – and all-out warfare by the time of 1983's infamous Kilroy Was Here. For the time being, however, Paradise Theater seemed to represent the best of both worlds, since its loose concept about the roaring '20s heyday and eventual decline of an imaginary theater (used as a metaphor for the American experience in general, etc., etc.) emed to satisfy both of the band's camps with its return to complex hard rock (purists Shaw and JY) while sparing no amount of pomp and grandeur (DeYoung).