I can't tell you the difference, but I think I liked more Styx than Kansas but I think Kansas had the bigger hit?
Carry On My Wayward Son vs Come Sail Away is a tie. Dust in the Wind is the next best song by either. Styx has more good songs after that, yet Kansas never did anything as horrible as Mr Roboto (the full album). Tough call. I vote Styx.
I think you're right I had to check: Renegade by Styx reached 16 on the US top 100 and Carry on wayward son reached 11 on the US top 100. edit: Dust in the wind reached #6.
I give the nod to Kansas. Solid 5 consecutive albums to start their career before they started to drop off. Styx took longer to reach their peak era, and the peak wasn't even as high.
That said, Come Sail Away is the best song by either of them. And also sound tracked one of my favorite TV scenes ever. Spoiler
I think Boston could have easily been in this poll. Maybe a southern rock battle royal between Lynard Skynard, 38 special, and Molly Hatchet.... although I think LS walks away with that one.
I remember years ago - I had a thread on which band was the best named after a continent (Asia over Europe), a country (Japan over UK and America), a state (Kansas over Alabama) and a city (Boston over Chicago). At any rate, I guess it depends on what you want out of these 2 bands. Both bands are actually very similar although I would say that Kansas definitely leaned more towards prog rock than Styx (although Styx started out as a somewhat prog influenced band). Kansas morphed into a more arena rock band in the early '80s when Steve Walsh got fed up with Kerry Livgren who had become a born again Christian. This led to the disastrous John Elefante era and eventually the album, Drastic Measures with the only good song being "Fight Fire with Fire" (which I still remember the video). No violin player and really nothing all that progressive remained of the band. They eventually regrouped and even had Steve Morse (!) in the band but he left after I think 2 albums to go to Deep Purple. Since then Kansas has actually gone back to being more of a true prog band and their last 2 albums are actually very good. Styx on the other hand moved into the corporate rock/arena rock route by the time they brought Tommy Shaw into the fold. Shaw along with their other guitarist, James "JY" Young always favored uptempo and hard rocking songs and they were always at war with Dennis DeYoung who tended to go to ballads and songs that would sound good on Broadway. At one point, they even fired DeYoung (I think this was around the late '70s, early '80s) only to bring him back when they realized they couldn't find a suitable replacement. But yes the Kilroy Was Here album featuring the beloved hit, Mr Roboto, pretty much killed that band. Shaw eventually quit in disgust and was a part of the supergroup Damn Yankees. However, they all made up by the time a greatest hits album was to be released but once again, DeYoung was having some issues (specifically some kind of virus that made him real sensitive to light) and Shaw and Young were not willing to wait on him. They went on without him, got a replacement and they like Kansas has had some really good recent albums. Whew, that is more than you would probably ever want to know about either of those 2 bands but like I said, they are very similar, so kudos to the op for doing this thread. With that being said, I will take Kansas just a slight bit over Styx.
Loved both as a kid. Saw both in concert . Still have all their vinyl albums. Have no interest to listen to either one ever again. Same goes for REO Speedwagon. Especially REO Speedwagon. Still like a lot of music from the 70’s. But, some of it is trash.
Adding them would would have made your question unfair, so the answer defaults to Skynrd, but Marshall Tucker Band deserves inclusion
