Celebrating the three-year anniversary of the release of Styx’s latest — and most vibrant — studio album, The Mission.
by Mike Mettler, resident Styxologist
band photos by Jason Powell
“The planets truly aligned for The Mission, and I couldn’t be prouder. It’s our boldest, most emblematic album since Pieces of Eight.” —Tommy Shaw
Happy third birthday to The Mission! The facts about it are as follows: Styx’s 16th studio album, The Mission, was released exactly three years ago today on June 16, 2017 via Alpha Dog 2T/UMe on CD, 180-gram vinyl, and download via various digital services, and it’s since taken its rightful place in the pantheon of unquestionably great great great Styx albums of all time.
In a comment made exclusively to Styxworld to mark this most majestic occasion, vocalist/guitarist/co-pilot Tommy Shaw observed, “We’re so proud of The Mission. Everyone shines on this album, and with the 5.1 surround version that was released in 2018, there’s another opportunity for fans to take the trip all over again in the 5.1 environment. And I hope our fans find all the subtle things hidden in the album/CD/Blu-ray graphics too. Here’s a hint: Check the Martian landscape!”
Over the course of the first three years of the album’s public life, Tommy has noted specifically on many an occasion in interviews, on social media, and from the live stage that the Styx family wants everyone to hear The Mission from start to finish by following their strongly suggested “no shuffling!” policy. In fact, you’ve probably heard Tommy say something to the effect of “Take the whole trip uninterrupted!” before he introduces one of The Mission’s key tracks, “Radio Silence,” in many of Styx’s pre-pandemic live sets over the past few years. (Naturally, once it’s safe for everyone to return to seeing and performing shows together in the same physical spaces, The Mission will again be played live from start to finish at scheduled and/or rescheduled dates/locales to come.)
As noted in this space 36 months ago in my official capacity as the chief information officer of the Global Space Exploration Program (or GSEP for short), I wrote that the “sonically sweet” The Mission is Styx’s “most ambitious, most challenging, and most rewarding release to date” — and that’s not just hype, either. The album has that rarefied timeless quality to it that makes it feel as if you’ve known it forever, yet still feels like it’s brand-spanking new. I was able to experience Mission songs in various stages of progress — and always on headphones, to keep the sonics hush-hush from anyone else in the vicinity — as they were being created behind closed doors over their 2-plus-year gestation period, with the ensuing end result being a career-defining work, to say the least.
To that end, The Mission is an aurally adventurous 43-minute thrill ride that chronicles the trials, tribulations, and ultimate triumphs of the first manned mission to Mars in the year 2033 onboard a spacecraft with the more-than-likely familiar name of Khedive. From the hopeful drive of “Gone Gone Gone” to the stargazing machinations of “Locomotive” to the rough-riding blaze of glory that permeates the hard-charging “Red Storm” to the elegiac optimism of the closing track “Mission to Mars,” The Mission succeeds in delivering the greater good from a band that continues to fire on all cylinders, now 48 years after signing their first recording contract back in 1972. (And you can quote me on that — all of it.)
We had a great time jamming on those songs. “One With Everything” was this amazing song that went through all sorts of changes. It had a different name at first — something crazy, like “My Beautiful Pompeii.” That was one of those songs where my wife Jeanne would come over and I’d say, “Listen to this song!” We’d start playing it and she’d go, “What the hell — ‘Pompeii’? WHAT???” (laughs heartily)
We realized at that point in our enthusiastic joy of creating this great piece of music that we hadn’t really thought about what we were singing! (laughs again) So there was a quick rewrite to “One With Everything” — which actually had a great deal of meaning. It’s one of our favorite things to play whenever we can fit it into the set, especially because of the great, progressive middle section in there.
“Yes I Can” was another one of those California-based songs. The imagery is the California scene. And speaking of California, our friend Billy Bob Thornton makes an appearance [doing lead vocals on “Bourgeois Pig”], and Tenacious D is in there somewhere too! [Jack Black and Kyle Gass — a.k.a. Tenacious D — appear on the hidden track “The Chosen One,” which follows directly after “Genki Desu Ka.”]
Right up until we began incorporating songs from The Mission into our set a few years ago, we used the song “Genki Desu Ka” as our walk-off music. “Genki Desu Ka” is Japanese — a very polite way of saying, “Do you feel good?”
Cyclorama also had this great Storm Thorgerson album cover, our final Storm album cover. He and his team did [September 1978’s] Pieces of Eight as well. We were proud to be associated with him and his great, iconic album covers.
[Your Styxologist clarifies: Storm Thorgerson, who passed away on April 18, 2013, is perhaps best known for designing album covers and related artwork for the likes of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin with partner Aubrey Powell in the British graphic design firm Hipgnosis. For his part, Powell was directly involved in the Pieces of Eight cover design.]
Tommy Shaw: Cyclorama was kind of an experimental record, just to see where we were as a band after having reformed in 1999. We were stretching our legs in the studio, and there was a lot of growth and moving forward. That’s how I look at that album. Whenever I think of Cyclorama, it puts a smile on my face.
