Paradise Theatre is the tenth studio album by American rock band Styx, released on January 16, 1981, by A&M Records. It was the band's most commercially successful album, peaking at #1 for three weeks on the Billboard 200 in April and May 1981 (non-consecutively). It was also the band's fourth consecutive album to be certified triple-platinum by the RIAA.
A concept album, the album is a fictional account of Chicago's Paradise Theatre from its opening in 1928 to its closing in 1956 (and subsequent demolition), used as a metaphor for America's changing times from the late 1970s into the 1980s.[7] (Dennis DeYoung, who envisioned and developed the entire concept, confirmed this in an episode of In the Studio with Redbeard about the making of the album.[8][9])
DeYoung has said that the theme of the album is "one of hope and renewal in the spirit of the American people to understand the problems that confront the world and this country and find solutions themselves to those problems. Don't depend on heroes to do what you must do for yourself. If you hate your job but you have a dream, then pursue it. Just don't sit around and complain about it."[10]
Newsday critic Wayne Robins stated that the songs "deal with people out of sync with themselves and their environment."[10] For example, "Too Much Time on My Hands" is about a man who is unemployed and has given up, he regards "Lonely People" as a "contemporary rewrite of the Beatles' 'Eleanor Rigby,'" and "Nothing Ever Goes as Planned" is about "the inevitability of failure."[10]
Vinyl edition
Initial vinyl copies of the album have a design featuring the name of the band laser-etched directly onto the vinyl on side 2 (some copies had a wax design of the cover art). The vinyl record sleeve was a gatefold and was painted by artist Chris Hopkins. On the back cover and label, the title of the record is spelled "Paradise Theater", while on the front cover, the title is spelled "Paradise Theatre". On the spine, the album title is "Paradise". "Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Albums 1955-2001 Billboard" lists the album title as "Paradise Theater".
Vinyl releases and initial CD pressings of the album had the musical segue between "Half-Penny, Two-Penny" and "A.D. 1958" indexed as the intro to "A.D. 1958". Subsequent pressings of the CD had the segue indexed as the fade to "Half-Penny, Two-Penny" instead.
