Pieces of Eight by Styx

Pieces of Eight, the eighth Styx album, hit the racks on A&M in September 1978, and it finds the Chicago band riding the momentum of The Grand Illusion without a flinch. Dennis DeYoung, James Young, Tommy Shaw and the Panozzo brothers, Chuck and John, produced it themselves at Paragon Studios back home, with Barry Mraz engineering and Rob Kingsland at the mixing desk; "I'm O.K." got part of its grandeur from a session in St. James Cathedral. It turned out to be their last trip to Paragon.

What you get is prog-rock pomp with its sleeves rolled up: synthesizers and piano jostling with hard, melodic guitar, and two singles that punched like a union rally. "Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)" and "Renegade" were the hits, and they pushed the record to triple platinum, just like its predecessor. Hipgnosis did the sleeve, which DeYoung admitted he hated at first and came round to over the years.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.