[DallasBiff]

Probably the worst single released by a popular hit making band ever.

Have fun and flame away, it's saturday.

[Responsibility2nd]

Never mind Mr. Roboto.

I keep playing this video over and over again.

It’s a Must Watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpYHgbjOIq0

[dznutz]

Probably the worst single released by a popular hit making band ever.

“We Built this City” by Jefferson Starship comes close.

[Mean Daddy]

McCartney’s The Girl is Mine, Ebony & Ivory and Say, Say, Say

[Restless]

I was a huge Styx fan in the 70s and early 80s, anxiously awaiting each new album. “Cornerstone” in 1979 was the first indication they were starting to go pop. “Paradise Theater” was good, but it still was straying from their hard-rock roots. But when I heard “Mr. Roboto” on the radio in 1983, I stopped buying Styx albums.

[T.B. Yoits]

Mr. Roboto is a great song. The problem that some of the band and some of the fans had was that they refused to recognize the 1980s had started.

Styx was a 70s band that entered the 80s.

Lady - 1973
Lorelei - 1975
Suite Madame Blue - 1975
Come Sail Away - 1977
Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man) - 1977
Miss America - 1977
The Grand Illusion - 1977
Blue Collar Man (Long Nights) - 1978
Renegade - 1978
Babe - 1979
Too Much Time On My Hands - 1981
Mr. Roboto - 1983

Note that Dennis DeYoung kept his hair short in the 70s while the rest of the band had long hair. In addition to being a founding member and writing many of their hit songs, he recognized the shift in music going into the 1980s. His crime to fans wasn't that he wrote and performed Mr. Roboto, it was that he didn't pass it along to Flock of Seagulls or some other 80s band. Then they would have loved it.

Dennis DeYoung was prescient enough to recognize the threats from computer technology that had already started. The band and the fans wanted to pretend that the world was still long hair, bell-bottoms, open shirts with exposed chest hair, folk rock and marijuana rock. They should have listened to him, both for the influence on music and how the world was changing with risks attached.

You're wondering who I am
Machine or mannequin
With parts made in Japan
I am the Modren Man

I've got a secret I've been hiding under my skin
My heart is human, my blood is boiling, my brain IBM
So if you see me acting strangely, don't be surprised
I'm just a man who needed someone and somewhere to hide
To keep me alive, just keep me alive
Somewhere to hide to keep me alive

I'm not a robot without emotions, I'm not what you see
I've come to help you with your problems, so we can be free

...

I am the Modern Man (Secret, secret, I've got a secret)
Who hides behind a mask (Secret, secret, I've got a secret)
So no one else can see (Secret, secret, I've got a secret)
My true identity

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

The problem's plain to see
Too much technology
Machines to save our lives
Machines dehumanize

The time has come at last (Secret, secret, I've got a secret)
To throw away this mask (Secret, secret, I've got a secret)
Now everyone can see (Secret, secret, I've got a secret)
My true identity

[mikey_hates_everything]

[caver]

I don’t agree with your opinion, but that’s OK. I can make a huge list of songs that I think suck, but it doesn’t make it the truth.

None the less, I always enjoy these threads about rock music.

[Charles Martel]

A lot of people forget, or never realized in the first place, that Kilroy Was Here was a concept album about the dangers of censorship and how the government could (abusively) control the future of music. Those concerns certainly solidified just a few years later with the formation of the Parents' Music Resource Center and the Senate hearings which did initiate the "parental advisory" stickers that were added to music packaging. Dennis DeYoung was ahead of the curve in raising that concern.

Concept albums don't always work out well. Certainly, the cheesy stage play that the band performed during that tour to set up the various songs didn't thrill the fans - but the album itself isn't bad. Yes, DeYoung has a flair for the theatrical, but it didn't merit the tantrum that his band mates threw back then.

[Revel]

Suit yourself. Mr Roboto is now recognized as a prophetic song that was way ahead of its time.

The official video on Youtube has 37 millions views. So it is not exactly a dud.

[TalBlack]

Mr Robot may be the worst damn thing I ever heard. For some reason the teens back in 1983 seemed to like it. We Built This City is Won’t Get Fooled Again compared to it.

In any event I wouldn’t mind having had a song everyone hates be a big hit.

[higgmeister]

I like it.   "I'm Kilroy, Kilroy, Kilroy!"

[SunkenCiv]

I’ve always disliked that one. But, I’ve also never been much of a Styx fan, when anyone else was watching. There’s an episode of “That 70s Show” specifically about closet Styx fandom, and I laugh pretty hard every time. The album the Eric character touts is “Paradise Theater” — when that one came out, the record stores around here wound up using stacks of the LPs to stand in for missing table legs. :^)