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Nightmare Fuel / Styx

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Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto!

  • "Castle Walls" from The Grand Illusion, has a bleak, eerie mood not heard in many Styx songs. The song starts off with an ominous, monotone heartbeat riff on the bass, with low, deep breathing the only other thing you can hear. When Dennis DeYoung begins singing, he sounds like he's whispering in a large damp vacant basement (or a dungeon), or if he's trying to avoid being caught by someone pursuing him. The lyrics, reminiscent of the Pied Piper tale (in which the minstrel enchants people to wander and lose their will), are foreboding. Then comes the instrumental solo, with a synthesizer BPM (beats per minute) that rivals John Carpenter's Halloween music theme (which would be released a little over a year following The Grand Illusion.), shifting the mood from merely eerie to downright scary.
  • The ups and downs of "Snowblind", itself an ode to why cocaine addiction can leave one blind to their own downfall.
  • The Roboto masks in "Mr. Roboto," which look eerie in the dark, moody lighting of the "Kilroy" short film, as pictured above. For extra fun, they're modeled on offensive cinematic caricatures of Japanese people.
    • The whole concept of Kilroy Was Here: Music censorship gone off the deep end, the ENTIRE genre of rock'n'roll music being banned, and an innocent man (the titular Kilroy) being falsely imprisoned for the death of an audience member.
  • Because of his voice, appearance and on-stage persona, songs sung by JY in general seem to lend themselves to this trope. A few good examples are "Miss America" from The Grand Illusion album, and "Heavy Metal Poisoning" from Kilroy Was Here.
  • "Queen of Spades", from Pieces of Eight, is basically about being tormented by a particularly twisted version of Luck (the eponymous Queen of Spades). The reworked version of the first few verses right after the chorus ("The first time is free, you know/ but from now on, pay me") almost parallel drug addiction....and that's before the maniacal laughter of the singer/narrator, right before their utterly chilling declaration of ''YOU LOSE!''.
  • Also from Pieces of Eight is the hit single "Renegade", a deceptively upbeat song about a common criminal who has just been captured and is awaiting his execution. The entire song delves into fear territory, but this line stands out: "Oh Mama, I can hear you crying, you're so scared and all alone; hangman is coming down from the gallows and I don't have very long." Not to mention that final rendition of the chorus, where the entire band sings in this really bizarre high pitch... and the monotonous beat of the drum sounds very similar to a gavel.
  • Most of the video for "Too Much Time on My Hands" is fun, but at the very end, Shaw apparently has a bit of a nervous breakdown about having too much time on his hands, and it blurs from Shaw staring and focusing on his wrist to a close-up of his eyes giving a strange look to the viewer as the music degenerates is replaced by a metallic slurry of what sounds like some distorted alarm clock.

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