The great VH1 series Behind the Music often glossed over a few detours in each band’s history.

To give one egregious example: The Fleetwood Mac episode skips over the period in which a succession of musicians — Billy Burnette, Rick Vito, Bekka Bramlett and former Traffic member Dave Mason — tried to fill the void left first by Lindsey Buckingham and then by Stevie Nicks. Buckingham and Nicks leave, yadda yadda yadda, everyone’s back together again!

The episode on Styx is a little more complete, introducing every new member in the relevant part of the band’s history.

Let’s see the quick overview:

• 1972–74: Dennis DeYoung, James Young, John Curulewski and the Panozzo brothers (Chuck and John) release four eclectic albums on the small label Wooden Nickel. They’re kind of a prog-rock band, debuting with a suite called Movement for the Common Man that includes Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man. That’s Emerson, Lake and Palmer territory. Styx II featured a reworked Bach fugue along with a song to remember, Lady, that got a belated boost from a Chicago DJ to become a hit.
• 1975: Curulewski stays for their A&M debut, Equinox, but then leaves and is replaced by Tommy Shaw, a Southern guitarist who earns his way into this Chicago band by hitting the high note on Lady’s challenging backup vocal line. Shaw’s full debut is Crystal Ball.
• 1977–1981: The Golden Era. Well, the Platinum Era. The Grand Illusion has Come Sail Away and Fooling Yourself. Next, Pieces of Eight enters Renegade and Blue Collar Man into the rock canon. Cornerstone is known mostly for Babe, and put a pin in that. Then Paradise Theatre (The Best of Times, Too Much Time On My Hands) continues the hot streak.

Then came Kilroy Was Here. (All together now: “DOMO ARIGATO, MIS-TER ROBOTO!”)

The album actually sold pretty well. But the tour extended the concept, an absurd, patronizing rock opera about a land in which rock and roll is banned and DeYoung’s protagonist (Kilroy) disguises himself as a robot to save the day with the help of a young crusader played by Tommy … look, it’s all a bit silly. Rush did the “banned rock and roll” dystopian thing a lot better with 2112, and as big a Rush fan as I am, I have to admit 2112 is a little silly, too. Kilroy adds the extra layer of doing all this as an overblown response to Bible Belters touting their periodic conspiracy theory of “backward masking.”

Behind the Music tells the story pretty well, and YouTuber Todd in the Shadows goes into more detail in his “Trainwreckords” series. Mr. Roboto was catchy, and Don’t Let It End was another DeYoung power ballad hit, but none of it made any sense. Mr. Roboto was supposed to be the story of Kilroy revealing himself to Jonathan Chance (Shaw), but then why is he thanking the roboto? Why is one verse about the excesses of technology, even as the music sounds like something from Epcot Center? Shaw gritted his teeth and “self-medicated” through the subsequent tour, which at one time sent festival-goers flocking to the exits.

That was the final wedge between DeYoung and Shaw, at least for the next 10 years. They had clashed for years over their contrasting visions — Shaw was an arena-rocker who wasn’t thrilled with ballads like Babe, which he would later ridicule in his time with Damn Yankees. (Ironically, or maybe hypocritically, Damn Yankees’ best-known song is a power ballad called High Enough, co-written by Shaw.) And with the declining health and passing of drummer John Panozzo, it was the last time the classic lineup would …

Time out. We’re forgetting something.

Before Shaw’s departure toppled the house of cards that was the band’s membership, Styx actually released one more song, tossed onto the live album Caught in the Act. And it’s not at all what you’d expect from a band that just gone around the country preaching a humorless rock gospel that one of the band’s two main creative forces couldn’t stand.

Behold the off-the-wall, occasionally juvenile Music Time.

It wasn’t as if Styx had always been a dour purveyor of power ballads and post-apocalyptic morality tales. The video for Too Much Time On My Hands is full of slapstick comedy, even from DeYoung. John Panozzo is the scene-stealer, trying to brag about his appearance in Billboard to a disinterested older woman while pouring a pitcher of beer into an overflowing glass.

But Music Time takes the comedy to uncomfortable places.

Sure, the sight gags are fun. The video looks like an animated comic strip, with a slow frame rate producing a herky-jerky effect as the action proceeds through a lot of primary colors and oversized items. DeYoung is adept at mugging for the camera, and the Panozzos and James Young seem to be having fun popping their heads up through a dinner table.

But the sight of DeYoung, the family man who wrote ballads for his wife, popping his eyes at buxom women on TV and panting on his knees in a dog costume for the benefit of “fast girls”? That’s more than we needed to see.

Shaw didn’t like this, either, even with some party-animal fun, some solid rock hooks and his own blazing guitar solo in the mix. He appears once in the video, separated from the other band members but pretending to wave as if they’re just off camera. His total camera time is about two seconds. Shaw later admitted it was the whole thing was a little childish.

And that would be the end of Styx’s classic lineup. Shaw was already on the way out, and it was a moot point. The band broke up.

Like most bands, there would be a reunion. In fact, all five band members would record and tour with Styx again. Just not at the same time.

The first reunion proceeded without Shaw, who was busy with Damn Yankees, and Glen Burtnik filled his position. But Shaw got back on board when the band cleverly did an end run around its old record label, Wooden Nickel. A&M Records wanted to put together a greatest-hits compilation, but they couldn’t get the rights to Lady. The band simply re-recorded the song, with Shaw in the fold, and the good feelings continued long enough for a couple of tours and one album, 1999’s Brave New World.

Unfortunately, drummer John Panozzo couldn’t join them for any of that. After years of heavy drinking, Panozzo wasn’t well. Enter Todd Sucherman. (Coincidentally, I worked with Sucherman’s brother, who chose a different career path.) Panozzo passed away a year later.

So the last song to feature the five members of Styx who recorded all their classic albums — basically, everything you’ve heard aside from Lady— was this fun but flimsy tune with a goofy video that walks a fine line behind amusing and uncomfortable.

After Brave New World, DeYoung wound up out of the band. He was ill at the time, but the rest of the band didn’t seem inclined to leave the door open for him to come back. That door remains shut. Lawrence Gowan replaced DeYoung, and the band hasn’t looked back.

(The band also has shuffled bass players under sad and yet inspirational circumstances — Chuck Panozzo was diagnosed with HIV and no longer participates on a permanent basis, but he has stepped forward to speak for gay men such as himself, and he plays with the band on occasion. Burtnik moved from guitar to bass when Shaw returned, but he later stepped aside, and the band brought in Ricky Phillips. Still, Styx is more stable than a lot of bands — including Panozzo, they have two original members, Shaw was part of the classic lineup, and Sucherman and Gowan have been around for a couple of decades. Phillips is the newest band member, but he’s been there for 17 years.)

The material from DeYoung’s long tenure with the band is still the bulk of the Styx setlist, which we’ll examine with the detailed if not fully verified stats at setlist.fm.

On the North American tour that ended when we were all told to confine ourselves to our homes (and the grocery store and the liquor store), they drew upon their entire timeline, heavily focused on the 1975–81 heyday. They went all the way back for Lady, of course. At the other end of the timeline, they rotated through six songs from their 2017 album The Mission. Lawrence Gowan, who has taken over DeYoung’s keyboard/vocal role for two decades, did a lovely piano version of the Rush song Limelight as a tribute to the recently departed Neil Peart, just as they did Mary Jane’s Last Dance a few times after Tom Petty’s death. They do a Damn Yankees song for some reason, and oddly enough, they revived Mr. Roboto in 2018.

You won’t hear Babe. According to setlist.fm data, Styx has played Babe three times since DeYoung’s last performance with the band at a Children’s Miracle Network telethon (seriously, and apparently without either Panozzo), most recently in 2007. If you want to hear Babe, go see DeYoung, who was also touring earlier this year and most certainly played the song that’s near and dear to his heart.

How about Music Time?

Let’s see … Movement for the Common Man (not since 1972), Mr. Roboto, various Mr. Roboto medleys, Never Come Back …

Wait … never? They’ve never played it live at all?

Granted, Styx wasn’t performing when that song was fresh. Caught in the Act was released in 1984. Setlist.fm has no data from that year. Or 1985, when the band started its hiatus. Or 1986, 1987, 1988 or 1989. They list one show in 1990, but they don’t list the songs.

In 1991, on tour to promote the reunion (minus Shaw) album Edge of the Century, they played the new stuff and the classics. No Music Time. Setlist.fm lists three shows in 1993, which seems like a glitch, and they don’t list any songs anyway.

The great reunion in 1996 was mostly the classics, with Show Me the Way the only carry-over from Edge of the Century. By 2006, they had basically ditched everything from Kilroy Was Here onward, with the exception of One With Everything from the 2003 album Cyclorama. (We’re not counting the cover songs they recorded on 2005’s Big Bang Theory and then played live for a couple of years.)

So Music Time occupies a strange place in the Styx timeline. It bears little resemblance to anything else Styx ever did. It’s hardly acknowledged since then. Mr. Roboto is kind of campy, and it was released when the band was still at or near its peak popularity. Music Time simply doesn’t have a place in the band’s canon.

But what’s the harm in playing it? Why go through Crystal Ball for the (checks setlist.fm) 782nd time (at least) when Music Time is still out there waiting for its live debut?

Or maybe we can start a Styx cover band …