Styx is rude
Also:
Why does Styx have such ‘tude about technology? In one line they’re saying ” Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto / For doing the jobs that nobody wants to / And thank you very much, Mr. Roboto / For helping me escape just when I needed to” and the next thing you know they’re saying “The problem’s plain to see / Too much technology.”
Doesn’t sound like such a problem to me, Mr. Styx.
Aprille,
Perhaps you should look at “Mr. Roboto” from the time frame when the album was made. During the early 1980’s mechanization was coming to the forefront, especially in the automotive manufacturing sector. The leader in this mechanization was Japan and, at the time, the Japanese made most of our consumerable products (Sanyo, Sony, JVC, etc.) hence the similarities between the stereotyped Japanese and the Mr. Robot mask (designed by oscar-winning SFX master Stan Winston).
You should have included the second stanza of the lyric which goes: “The problem’s plain to see/too much technology/machines to save our lives/machines de-humanize.” At the time, the outlook was very bleak for our productive future since the machines were taking over the workplace by replacing the former human laborer. Further, the movies at the time reflected the growing discontent of the time: “Runaway” (1984) with Tom Sellack and Gene Simmons of KISS, about mechanized monsters; Stephen King’s “Maximum Overload” about all machines coming to life; even the scary aspect of “Gung Ho” (1986) with Michael Keaton and a Japanese company taking over an American automobile manufacturing plant.
Dennis DeYoung, the composer of the song, tended to put too much into his idea of a concept album. Since this reply is about the song “Mr. Roboto” I will not lead you into the loose concepts of “The Grand Illusion”, “Pieces of Eight”, and “The Paradise Theater.” DeYoung not only complicated the concept of the album “Kilroy was Here” by throwing in refrences to robots serving man and taking over the menial tasks, but he also decided to take a stance against the moral groups who wished to ban and/or limit access to various songs and music groups.
In the album “Kilroy was Here” he creates a morality group called the Majority for Musical Morality (MMM) which is loosely based upon Tipper Gore’s morality group of the 1980’s. the album and the idea were hard to comprehend for the average listener/fan/music reviewer and it faired well riding upon the previous album and the Styx name. However, just a few years later, 2 Live Crew released “As Nasty as they Want to be” and the album was banned, burned, cherished, and was in front a congressional hearing which, ultimately, began the warning labels now found on music recordings thanks in part to Tipper Gore.
Give the song another listen. I hope you will find that the album was prophetic, to a point, about how popular music is raped before the First Amendment. On the album, another song which points out the abuses of the government is called “High Time”. this song comes out and clearly states “It’s not the music that’s in question/It’s the freedom of expression.”
Well.
All right then.