Besides teaching the entire country the Japanese phrase "Domo arigato," Styx gave mainstream listeners some of the most successful prog-influenced arena rock of the '70s and '80s. The band's roots as an esoteric art band gave it an edge, with its members creating audacious concept albums that stretched the imagination and exceeded what listeners expected from the hit-makers. Their music continues to impress to this day.

The band's story begins in the late '60s, when bassist Chuck Panozzo and his guitarist brother John Panozzo were in a band called the Tradewinds with vocalist and keyboardist Dennis DeYoung. James "JY" Young, a guitarist and vocalist, and John Curulewski, another guitarist and vocalist, would also join the band. Eventually, they would settle on the name Styx, after the river in ancient Greek mythology that separated the land of the living from that of the dead.

The band's early albums experimented with artsy prog-rock, which was fashionable at the time, but didn't earn them much in the way of hits. It wasn't until 1974, when the band landed a hit with "Lady," that they began to receive major exposure. Curulewski would be replaced by Tommy Shaw not long afterward, and the four successive albums they released during the rest of the '70s would all turn platinum or multi-platinum. Like the wizard on the cover of their 1975 album The Magic Man, they seem to have unlocked the secret to commercial success.

The band became much more commercial with each successful record, but still managed to experiment. 1981's Paradise Theater was a concept album comparing the United States to a once stately cultural center that had become decrepit. 1983's Kilroy Was Here was the most notorious of their concept albums, postulating a future where humans were replaced with robots (and giving birth to the group's best known hit single, "Mr. Roboto.")