20Th Century Masters

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Dennis DeYoung had a relatively brief period in the spotlight as a solo star in the 1980s, charting two of his three A&M Records albums before retreating back to his lead singing and keyboard-playing duties with Styx. The four music videos contained on this collection chronicle that period, when he also seemed to be auditioning for movie work. At least, that's what you'd think from the clip for his one big solo hit, "Desert Moon," which finds him returning by train to the small town identified at the station as Santa Paula (which presumably means it was shot in Santa Paula, CA), which one gathers is supposed to be his hometown, where he encounters old friends, a younger brother, and his red Mustang convertible, but where he does not find his old love, who, he is told, has moved to Chicago. After hanging out, drinking beer, playing football, and having heart-to-hearts with old friends, he returns to the train stop, where he gives his little brother the keys to the car and says he's heading for Chicago. "Don't Wait for Heroes," also a song from the Desert Moon album, is another story video in which DeYoung plays the lead singer of an aspiring rock band who oversleeps and misses an audition, dreaming of rock stardom. Happily, the band is seen that night at a club gig by some bigwig and, one assumes, is on its way. "Call Me," a ballad from DeYoung's second album, Back to the World, combines rain and late-night deserted city streets with a performance in the back of a greasy spoon called "Joe's." "Boomchild," the title song from DeYoung's non-charting 1988 third album, inspires an effects-filled video reflecting the song's lyrics, which are about the experiences of baby boomers like the singer, dating back to the atomic bomb and including the usual stops at John F. Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, etc., and ending with him flying off in another red convertible. It's exactly the sort of thing that Billy Joel did better a year later with "We Didn't Start the Fire." And that's it. Oddly, there is no video for DeYoung's chart single for "This Is the Time," featured in The Karate Kid. The singer is not particularly photogenic, which makes the focus on him seem odd in retrospect, but he manages adequately. ~ William Ruhlmann