Best Thing

Best Thing: Styx and the Sound of a Band Still Finding Itself

Long before stadium anthems, elaborate concept albums, and platinum sales defined their commercial peak, Styx was a Chicago-area band still working out exactly what kind of rock group it wanted to become in a crowded, competitive field. Best Thing, released in 1972, captures the group in that formative stage, a period of progressive-leaning experimentation and hard-won chart footholds that would eventually give way to the arena-rock success the band achieved later in the decade with an entirely different lineup and sound, once new members and new songwriting partnerships reshaped the group entirely. The song offers a glimpse of the raw ambition and technical curiosity driving a band not yet fully formed into the act that would later produce era-defining hits for a national audience of millions. Few listeners hearing it on the radio in 1972 could have predicted the stadium-filling force the band would eventually become by the end of that same decade.

A Band Built on Musical Ambition

Formed from members who had played together since their teenage years around Chicago, Styx built its early identity on a fusion of hard rock energy and progressive rock complexity, drawing on keyboard-driven arrangements and multi-part vocal harmonies that distinguished the group from more straightforward rock acts of the period entirely, giving even early singles a distinctive textural signature. That progressive inclination, evident even on early tracks like Best Thing, would remain a defining feature of the band's sound throughout its most commercially successful years to come, long after this early single had been mostly forgotten by casual listeners who only knew the later, bigger hits from the radio.

Finding an Identity Between Genres

Musically, the track balances muscular rock instrumentation with the kind of layered vocal arrangements and keyboard flourishes that hinted at the band's progressive rock leanings, a combination that set Styx apart from both the straightforward hard rock and the more esoteric prog acts populating the early-1970s landscape at the time on both sides of the Atlantic. It represented a band actively searching for its commercial voice, testing how much complexity radio audiences would accept alongside driving rock energy packed into a single three-minute track built for AM airplay.

A Foothold on the Chart

The single entered the Billboard Hot 100 on September 16, 1972, at number 93, and climbed gradually over the following weeks of steady, if modest, airplay across regional markets and college radio stations. It eventually reached its peak position of number 82 on October 14, 1972, across a run of roughly six weeks on the chart in total that fall. Modest as those numbers were, they represented genuine, hard-won validation for a young band still building its reputation from the ground up in a crowded field of hopeful competitors chasing the same limited airplay, proof that its music could register with a national audience even before the group found its true signature commercial sound years later on down the road.

An Early Step Toward Arena Rock Stardom

Styx would go on to become one of the defining arena rock acts of the late 1970s and early 1980s, scoring multiple number-one albums and a string of iconic singles that remain radio staples to this day across classic rock formats and streaming playlists alike, decades after their original release. Best Thing stands as an early data point in that longer trajectory, a reminder that even bands destined for massive stadium success typically spend years working out their sound in front of comparatively modest audiences before the real breakthrough finally arrives for them at last, often after considerable lineup turnover.

Press play and hear the sound of a future arena-rock powerhouse still finding its footing in the early 1970s.

"Best Thing" — Styx's singular moment on the 1970s charts.