10 Rock Albums That Were Killed By One Song
2. Mr. Roboto - Styx
Styx was never a band that really hit it off with the critics back in the day. Though their brand of rock music with progressive elements was certainly nothing new, the amount of hatred the press showed towards them in their prime seems fairly unwarranted in retrospect. Styx have had some decent tunes throughout their tenure, but that doesn't get them off the hook for what they did on "Mr. Roboto."
Wanting to go in an even more experimental direction, keyboardist Dennis DeYoung seized creative control of the group and delivered one of the most reviled pieces of rock theatrics in the band's catalog. Even though the song proved to be a huge hit for the band, this ended up being the last straw for a lot of fans and band members alike.
It's hard to go by critical opinion on this one, but this song is what caused songwriter Tommy Shaw to quit the entire Styx project, unable to take the misguided vision DeYoung had decided to take the band down. The record Kilroy Was Here still holds together as a decent Styx album with a handful of good hooks, but with this song to kick everything off, all the goodwill that the band may have had towards each other at the time began to slowly wither away.