Styx: ‘Kilroy Was Here’ – Is it Really That Bad?

1. 

   @MyMotherTheCar

   January 27, 2026 at 11:13 pm

   The sheer amount of cocaine it must've taken to come up with that concept, get that record made and get it on the radio must've been staggering.

2. 

   @dougdanielsmedia3472

   January 27, 2026 at 11:13 pm

   Paradise Theate was 1981. Gilroy was 1983 into 1984. How the hell could you have gotten that one wrong and three years later you haven't made the correction edit??

3. 

   @chadergeist82

   January 27, 2026 at 11:13 pm

   Don't Let It Ends does fit on this album! SMH!

4. 

   @tabicat3100

   January 27, 2026 at 11:13 pm

   Overall the album is really weak compared to their other ones but Cold War is really good imo

5. 

   @DTMAddict

   January 27, 2026 at 11:13 pm

   Think of a most hated hit Mr. Roboto is about Sony/ATV and its artists in 1983…

6. 

   @Happy_HIbiscus

   January 27, 2026 at 11:13 pm

   🤖🤖🤖🤖😊😊😊😊

7. 

   @wernerhuehn674

   January 27, 2026 at 11:13 pm

   This album has some great songs on it. It got a bad rap.

8. 

   @mikebomo

   January 27, 2026 at 11:13 pm

   I love Styx but Kilroy is awful. I use to think that Cornerstone was a bad album but compared to Kilroy…It's a masterpiece. Kilroy is the only Styx Album I Do not own and never will.

9. 

   @Vaelsung1

   January 27, 2026 at 11:13 pm

   "Just Get Through This Night" is the best cut on the album and delivers Tommy Shaw's best vocal performance….heartfelt, soaring, brooding and emotionally poignant. The introductory instrumental that leads into Shaw's opening vocal phrase is haunting, melancholy, hypnotic and beautiful. Unfortunately, it's a track that is often overlooked but for those who revisit it, you're in for a treat. "You can't stop the music you bastards. Long live Rock n Roll!" – Jonathan Chance

10. 

    @Dyynamo

    January 27, 2026 at 11:13 pm

    I find KWH a let down on what they'd done previously. I don't think the quality of the songs matched their previous four albums and I think the reason for that was the fact that Tommy Shaw wasn't enthused by the project, so his songwriting suffered as a result. I saw STYX at Wembley Arena in 81 on the Paradise Theatre album and what really got to me was that the whole 150 show was excellent as a whole, but every time they did a Tommy Shaw song it was like a shot in the arm taking it to a higher level each time. That sort of magic was missing from the KWH album as far as I'm concerned.

11. 

    @classicalvintagecollector

    January 27, 2026 at 11:13 pm

    Since you asked, I will reply. First off, I appreciate your overall review of the album. It was very objective and positive, yet pointed out the good and bad on the album.

    You are a few years younger than I – I was 15 in 1983 when the album came out and it was "Don't Let It End" that got me into Styx. I didn't buy the album until 1986 after I had graduated from high school and was rather disappointed with the entire thing. I actually owned DeYoung's 1984 and 1986 solo albums prior to owning "Kilroy." I am a big DeYoung fan and am disappointed that Shaw and Young can't make amends with DeYoung. I have seen Styx live sans DeYoung (in 2019) and it was a good performance. Shaw's voice was awesome and the whole show was professionally done.

    Now, my views comes from a compositional and thematic standpoint. I grew up listening to the Alan Parsons Project whose every album was a concept album. My dad introduced me to them and, by the time I had purchased "Kilroy" I knew "The Turn of a Friendly Card," "Eye in the Sky," "Ammonia Avenue," and "Vulture Culture" like the back of my hand. "Kilroy" was extremely thematically disjointed compared to Parson's themes. It would have been better if Styx had focused on a global theme of tyranny – restricting freedoms (gun control, freedom of speech, etc) rather than rock music and having two groups band together against the dictator.

    Musically, "Roboto" annoyed me to no end when I was a teenager. By this point in my musical career, I was listening to a lot of classical music and playing the masters like Beethoven and Chopin on piano. I also was composing music directed by my teacher who was professor of piano at Eastern Washington University. So one example of why "Roboto" is flawed – it deals with two-bar phrases and has two notes in the famous melody. Two bar phrases are the simplest and are generally, but not always, associated with young kid's songs, which is why adolescents took to "Roboto" when it first came out. Rock music generally lends itself to four-bar phrases, which are not as sophisticated as 8-bar phrases. "Don't Let It End" in the verse section uses an 8-bar phrase, which is what drew me to the song; the chorus is in a four-bar phrase, which is my least favorite part of the tune.

    As an adult and having a forty-year+ perspective on the album, other than "Don't Let It End," the rest of the "Kilroy" album doesn't appeal to me like "Cornerstone" or "The Grand Illusion." Shaw's "Boat on a River" from "Cornerstone" or DeYoung's "Carrie Ann" are the pinnacle of song-writing, in my opinion. 8-bar phrases with good rhythmic variety and a melody spanning an octave.

    On a final note, I am also not a big fan of musicals. Webber's "Phantom" and "Fiddler on the Roof" are exceptions to the rule; but, I generally do not like the style of that genre. If you follow DeYoung's career, he acted on Broadway, he put out a Broadway album, and produced a music on the "Hunchback." Clearly, this was a direction he personally wanted to go in and "Kilroy" boarders on it. From interviews I have watched, this wasn't a direction the other band members wanted to go in; however, the record label kept pushing DeYoung's songs because they made the label money. DeYoung has admitted his mistake in interviews, but I believe jealousy (that has turned into bitterness) from Shaw and JY has gotten in the way.

12. 

    @tsitracommunications2884

    January 27, 2026 at 11:13 pm

    You darn skippy it was bad, straying from classic prog rock to new wave with a touch of yacht rock, especially with that dont let it end; a tune on unrequited love dont belong on an album whose concept is on the banning of rock

13. 

    @Sherlock385

    January 27, 2026 at 11:13 pm

    I love this album. The songs are pretty uneven, but I love it anyway. Trivia: the leadinf single inspired the TV series Mr. Robot

14. 

    @josephmanno4514

    January 27, 2026 at 11:13 pm

    People who think this album is "really that bad" attend Mass at Our Lady of Just Don't Get It.

    There really isn't a bad song on the album.

    People who don't like theatrics mixed in with their rock have their place in society. Just nowhere near me.

15. 

    @davidbirdsong4750

    January 27, 2026 at 11:13 pm

    I saw this tour. As bad as the album was the live show was really great. The band was aa the absolute height of their powers at this time. A top live act. The theatrical component has been overblown over the years, they were having fun with it and blowing lines and laughing at themselves. The crowd was many thousands of teenagers all drunk or stoned on skunk weed so it all seemed as EPIC as it was supposed to be. But none of us were so stoned that we didn't wonder where "Lady" was, not knowing Styx is in a continuous feud with the party that owns the rights to that song.

16. 

    @nikosf

    January 27, 2026 at 11:13 pm

    Summer of 83 , that album was everywhere (Greece), especially on the pirate radio stations , wonderful guilty ? well not anymore pleasure

17. 

    @terrencereardon6374

    January 27, 2026 at 11:13 pm

    MMM predated the PMRC which was started by Democrat Tipper Gore. The outlawing of Rock music has come to life. Warning stickers came to light a few years after Kilroy and also the propaganda.

18. 

    @force263

    January 27, 2026 at 11:13 pm

    Styx I find a strange album band, as if the different personalities making up the band would never allow for a coherent full-lp vision to ever come through…EXCEPT for Paradise Theater, which, frankly, is a damned good album. It was big when I was around 11-12, and I find it easily Styx’ best album, although they do have quite a few choice songs scattered across their discography.

    Kilroy seems to be the point where the band’s attempts at a musical democracy came to a crashing halt, as Dennis DeYoung wanted – probably always wanted – HIS vision to be the band’s vision.

    But overall, Styx gets a bad rap, they’re actually a decent singles band from, say, Grand Ilkusiom thru Paradise Theater, maybe even Kilroy, since there were a couple big hits iirc.

19. 

    @hailmaryrecordings8255

    January 27, 2026 at 11:13 pm

    Greetings from Chicagoland!

    This band was omnipresent on Chicago-radio in the 70’s & Early-80’s, but this album was the end of them.

    I had it when I was in 7th-grade and played it quite a bit, until my Ozzy-phase started in the summer of ‘83.

20. 

    @beaudure01

    January 27, 2026 at 11:13 pm

    Rarely does a work of art make you laugh WITH it and simultaneously laugh AT it.

    It's completely convoluted. Mr. Roboto has a bridge about "too much technology," sung over a wall of synthesizers. In the narrative, Kilroy takes off the mask as soon as he meets Jonathan Chance, and yet Mr. Roboto drags out that moment as if he was perpetuating the illusion of being said Roboto. The dialogue is awful, and you can see how little Tommy Shaw cares for the whole project. And the rest of the album doesn't do much to advance the story — how does Don't Let It End fit in?

    And yet, it's kind of fun. The hooks are solid. And say this for DeYoung — he absolutely commits to the part.

21. 

    @jeffqualizza7612

    January 27, 2026 at 11:13 pm

    THAT IS MY ALL TIME FAVORITE STYX ALBUM AND “HEAVY METAL POISONING” IS MY ALL TIME FAVORITE STYX SONG.

22. 

    @TheNightBadger

    January 27, 2026 at 11:13 pm

    Great review! I think the album is weak compared to their previous run of good to very good albums, and the concept is… clunky. It was almost certainly harmed by the attempt to do theatre on tour which failed quite badly, but the hits were as good as anything they did before or after (I love 'Don't Let it End', and although 'Mr. Roboto' is close to being a novelty song, the construction is just too good, and DeYoung plays it so straight it just can't help but win the listener over), and the design of the album – cover, golden Roboto's, etc, is good and works well with theme. Ultimately, the album just isn't quote as solid as what came before, and the concept is a case of overreach at a time when concept albums had become a byword for bloated. I wish Styx had stayed together to go back to a more basic rock album which was supposedly what DeYoung had promised the band, but the experience of this killed them and all we have is the fun 'Music Time' from 'Caught in the Act' as a swansong (I also love Caught in the Act which – despite it seeming to only have mediocre reviews – showcases the band's history very well, with Music Time as an added bonus).

23. 

    @ogam5

    January 27, 2026 at 11:13 pm

    …..I was arguably, among THE biggest fans of this band worldwide – "Roboto" at that time, pushed pop arrangements further than they'd been and SO hoped it'd be their SECOND chart-topper ("Best Of Times", came JUST as close) – but, YOU know – MJ & Q, while HATING "Don't Let It End" (has NOT aged well; VERY much sonically evocative of the decade's most-NOTORIOUS – no, not referencing DURAN's later title track; IT was a Stax-Volt influenced MASTERPIECE – musical attributes) follow-up double-A side "High Time" / "Double Life" HAS to be one of the BEST summer singles EVER released; former's harmonies are as good as CS & N – so naturally, A & M didn't lift a FINGER to PROMOTE it (no picture sleeve, DIDN'T help but, label viewed as being a mere 'STOCK 45')…..on balance a PROVOCATIVE, frequently-ENGAGING longplayer which I'd give a B- grade.

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