RAISED ON RADIO

As I have said in some of my previous reviews on Journey albums, it is probably universally agreed that, at some point in time, Journey sold out and left their progressive aspirations behind completely and ventured wholly into commercial areas of music. The real purists (probably those who lean towards Jazz-Rock/Fusion) argue that only the debut album is really kosher from a Prog perspective and some slightly more tolerant listeners might say that the three first albums are ok, but after that they draw the line. Other Prog fans (those who prefer the harder rocking and more melodious sides of Prog) would perhaps rather favour albums like Infinity and perhaps even Departure and maybe Frontiers. Personally, I belong to the second group, holding up Infinity as my favourite Journey album. On that album, the band maintained some of their progressive aspects and great guitar work, while combining it with good song writing and the excellent and distinctive lead vocals of Steve Perry. But after Infinity, the band embarked on a "journey" that would eventually lead them to the trite and radio friendly music that can be found on Raised On Radio. The previous Frontiers was a good album, but this album is where I draw the line. Even the lacklustre Evolution and Escape albums (that I also rated with one star) have their moments, but Raised On Radio is consistently poor.

I don't really feel the need to comment on individual tracks this time as the songs here sound pretty much the same. The song lengths all lie in the three to five minutes range and are based on vocals, keyboards and guitars. As usual the vocals and guitars are very good, and there are a few passages where keyboards are in the foreground, but this time this is just not enough to save this album from the lowest possible rating. Needless to say, there is nothing progressive about this album whatsoever. The song writing is generic and dull and there is not even one good song here. The production is overly polished and aimed at radio play.

One of Journey's worst albums, only for completionists.

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