JOURNEY

Review #166!

Fitting that my first one-star review was from Journey, one of the biggest AOR bands in history. But in all seriousness, just to keep myself from punching my computer repeatedly and passionately until it breaks, this review will be short. I will try to keep my anger in check as best as I can. Now to the review. This album starts with the ultra-hit 'Don't Stop Believing', which has plagued my existence ever since I first heard it. Hideous, disgusting, and vile. Following it is 'Stone in Love', with some poor musicianship, horrible panning (you can barely hear the vocal over the loud guitar tracks, maybe for the better), and more. 'Who's Crying Now' is the perfect showcase of Steve Perry's squeaky, obnoxious vocals. The music is cheap, repetitive, and utterly cheesy. "Keep On Runnin' is deeply frustrated, because it tries its best to be high-octane and fun, but is cut by the bad vocals, overly-simplistic drumming, and dumb, repetitive guitar riffs. 'Still They Ride' sounds like something that would play in the background of some B-rated romance movie. It wants to be profound, but then it realizes it's a journey song and gives up on trying to sound good. 'Escape' is horribly repetitive and goes nowhere, as the entire album is. 'Lay it Down' is Rush-reminiscent, but for the worse, since it's the same riff for four minutes straight. 'Dead or Alive' sounds okay for the first three seconds, or until Steve Perry sings and runs everything. 'Mother, Father' sounds like the poor man's Styx: arena rock that is too repetitive and just plain bad to be called anything other than 'ppbbbbbttthtthh!'. 'Open Arms, another big hit, shows Steve Perry trying to be sentimental and pretty, but it just sounds like slightly more comprehensible caterwauling. No good. This album is quite simply put, garbage, but I won't judge the people who like this music, since it can hold a lot of sentimental value for those who grew up with it. I grew up hating it when everyone else loved it, so there are no good memories here for me. So, in my eyes, irredeemable, but not that bad for everyone. Prog on, but don't Journey on.

An album that most Journey fans are not even aware of its existence, this a hard to find CD with the soundtrack of an obscure Japanese film Yume, Yume, No Ato. It was released in 1980. just before the band reached their mega hit status with Escape. In fact this is the last album by the group featuring original member Gregg Rollie. And the music in here has very few similarities from anything they have done, before or since. There are just three songs with vocals: Destiny, Sandcastles and Little Girl. Those are the ones you´ll find more familiar due to the very unique voice of Steve Perry, but even then, they are way different, featuring a more relaxing, laid back feel, with long instrumental breaks, lots of orchestration and even elements of world and japanese music thrown in for good measure. A "real" soundtrack album that seems to be made specially to please their enormous fan base in Japan.

There are few really remarkable parts, most of then featuring Neil Schons beautiful guitar lines and solos, backed by Rollies Fender Rhodes electric piano, with a definitely jazzy feel (even a sax solo is present on Sandcastles). It clearly shows the band could deliver much more than "just" the hard rock/fusion of their early stuff or the AOR/pop of the late 70s onward. Although I do not find it particularly appealing to me, it is nevertheless proof that they were better musicians and songwriters than most people think. And one can only wonder where would they have gone if they decided to take such departure further. Anyway, the album is still a valid statement of Jorneys versatility and talent. And if you like the band (and soundtracks), you should listen to Dream After Dream just to realise how different they could be without losing any of the melodic ear nor their skill in delivering great tunes.

An interesting surprise!

The second Steve Augeris fronted Journey album came in 2005 with several differences from their recent works. As title implies, the album is a mix of "old and "new" band´s sound. The tracks are also longer than usual and, most of the time, quite heavier too. The best example of those characters together is the opener: typical AOR Journey, but almost clocking at the seven minute mark, and the guitars are definitely on the upfront. The same goes for The Place In Your Heart, but then on things go differently, with several songs featuring new elements (or, to be more precise, old elements of Journey mark I), like soul, blues, gospel, fusion and hard rock influences. On Out Of Harms Way the influence of Led Zeppelin is overwhelming and Neil Schon proves why he is often cited as one of the most underrated guitar heroes of the world. The guy really kicks ass when he wants to!

Vocals are also handled by all band members at least on one song each, with mixed results. Deen Castronovo is surely their Phil Collins: not only he´s a extraordinary drummer but also sings so well he could have applied to be a singer in another AOR band, maybe even Journey itself. If you don´t believe me just listen to It´s Never Too Late and see for yourself. Small wonder he is the only one who sang on two tracks and did a fantastic job, despite the fact the band had already an outstanding vocalist. And what about the others? Well, keyboardist Jonathan Cain does a decent job on the title track, but Schon and bassist Ross Valory should have stuck to their instruments and sing only backing vocals.

The repertoire is a bit uneven, with some tunes dragging a little too much, but, as usual, the songwriting is good, even on the weakest tracks. Maybe the strongest asset Journey has, beside their obvious musicianship, is their knack for delivering great hooks and melodies, something they never lost all over the years. Their commercial success may have faded with time, but their ability to produce great AOR stuff has not.

Overall I liked the album, although some heavier tunes and overlong ballads did not please me that much. On the other hand there are some fine songs like Beyond the Clouds that deserved to be known by more people.

Rating: 3 stars. A solid, good CD, but not really essential.

I, like any other Journey fan, I guess, was not prepared to give any chance to an album without the great singer Steve Perry. How could we? Perry , hate him or love him, is a unique singer, had a distinctive voice and was mostly responsible for their mega success after so many years of struggling. Besides, the guy also had a terrific live persona that fired up their shows. So I missed this album and just wanted to forget it all. Even when a friend at the time recommended me their Journey 2001 DVD I did not bother to even take a look at it. And only a few weeks ago I decided to listen to the album since I was really surprised with the high quality of their latter CDs. I figured out that Arrival might also be a good one after all. Needless to say, that proved right.

Ok, this is not a classic. But, boy, is it good! Listening to their back discography one can only be amazed of how those guys never lost their knack for great hooks and melodies, even if radio and press in general have abandoned them a long time ago. Fine, if you don´t like Journey at their heyday, you won´t find anything here to redeemed it. On the other hand, if you do enjoy their classics, than you can do no wrong buying this CD: Steve Algeri may not be as charismatic on stage as Perry, but he does the impossible (or what looked like it): he sounds a lot like Perry without sounding forced or unnatural or a caricature. In fact, he does like a little less passionable version of the former band´s singer, which is fine to me.

While none of the band members lost their great musicianship, the production is sharp and the arrangements are tasteful , nothing could be done without good songs, and Arrival has plenty of them. From the fine opener Higher Place to the final two bonus tracks, we have a selection that are, if not up to their most well known stuff, at least worth more than one quick listen: they all are at least good ones and if you like AOR and ballads like only Journey does, chances are you´re going to like this album very much. I did. They even extend the instrumental parts and at least one song, Livin´to Do, with its bluesy feeling and over 6 minute time reminds me of their early material. In other words, they stick to what they do better and that´s something great, specially nowadays.

Rating: 3,5 stars.

Debut album from the AOR legends Journey!

Nevertheless, here is no AOR to be found because Journey is a symphonic prog album much in the vein of Emerson Lake and Palmer and Yes, with some influences from more commercial prog acts like Kansas or even hard rock glimpses much in the vein of Free or UFO.

The musicians are all splendid (except the mediocre vocals...) and the songs intricate and complex enough. But the problem is that they are not catchy enough. Maybe the most commercial songs like Play Some Music or Mystery Mountain are the best here, because the most progressive ones are sadly also the worst.

Just boring, guys. It's no surprise that this album did not sell well back then!

Best Tracks: Play Some Music, Topaz (the best instrumental sections of the album in my opinion) and Mystery Mountain (energetic and funny hard rock tune)

Conclusion: if you are searching for the origins of the Journey that are famous today, maybe you should start with Infinity. Because in this debut (and in their second and third record too) these guys were still in the search of their true identity.

And sadly, they were in the search of true compelling songwriting too.

My rating: **

"How a record company and a lead singer radically changed the sound from captivating prog into smooth AOR"

The roots of Journey go back to a highschool were Neal Schon and Gregg Rolie met, and exchanged musical ideas. A few years later the two friends started to make impression in Santana his band but they decided to found their own group, named Journey (including ex-Zappa drummer Aynsley Dunbar). In 1975 their eponymous debut album was released, an awesome blend of varied styles with the Journey trademark: howling and biting, often wah-wah drenched guitar soli from Neal Schon and strong, very distinctive vocals and powerful Hammond organ from Gregg Rolie (one of the most underrated masters on this vintage keyboard). The band got a lot of praise, but two albums later the record company CBS was no longer pleased with their progressive music: it was not on the commercial radio and simply didn't sell, that was not expected with the two 'Santana stars'. So CBS asked for a leadsinger and a more commercial sound. Journey did what CBS wanted, first with Robert Fleischman (early 1977) and then with Steve Perry (late 1977), he turned out to be the perfect choice, for CBS, and the band members their wallets. So my dear Journey went from genuine progressive rock to pure AOR, sold millions and millions and every massive stadium tour was sold out. Who cared about the few fans that were disappointed about this radical change of a musical direction by Journey?

The album Infinity is the first album with new lead singer Steve Perry and became a huge success, the album got a platinum status and the single Wheel In The Sky reached #57 in the USA Billboard Top 100. But how about the music? Well, it hardly sounds progressive, although all members from the original line-up still were part of the band. The focus is on Steve Perry his voice, he colours the music in compositions that alternate between dreamy ballads and song oriented melodic rock, very accessible and predictable. Neal Schon delivers some great harder-edged guitar soli, but if you compare his contributions on Infinity with their first album (in songs like Of A Lifetime, Kohoutek and Topaz), it's pretty obvious that CBS had taken over control. And the fans loved this new Journey and their charismatic frontman Steve Perry, they knew every word of the lyrics, they hailed and adored the band.

But for me Journey is the story of a lead singer who changed the sound of a band, from prog to AOR. And I was a fan right from the beginning, I bought their debut LP in 1975, attended their Dutch Pinkpop gig in 1978 (Infinity tour) and even their Dutch Departure tour in my former hometown The Hague in 1980. But then I decided to get rid of Journey, and even more embraced my new heroes Rush who I had also followed since 1975, and also seen at the legendary Dutch Pinkpop festival (in 1979).

In the first half of the Seventies two members of the Santana band decided to leave Carlos and make their own music: Gregg Rolie (excellent Hammond player and strong distinctive voice) and Neil Schon (unique heavy guitar sound, just listen to Every Step Of The Way on Caravanserai!). They founded Journey, along with Zappa drummer Aynsley Dunbar and bass player Ross Valory. In 1975 Journey released a highly acclaimed eponymous debut album featuring a progressive blend of different styles with a propulsive rhythm section and great work on guitar and keyboards. The successor Look Into The Future (1976) became a huge disappointment for me, it contains some good songs but too many mediocre and even weak tracks.

But on this third album entitled Next (1977) Journey seemed to have found their musical formula. Remarkable are the bluesy overtones, this fits perfectly with Gregg Rolie his a bit melancholical vocals and Neal Schonn his moving guitarwork. Like in Spaceman (biting guitar outbursts), I Would Find You (howling guitar in the end) and the final song Karma (wah-wah guitar). The great thing on Next is the development of the socalles 'early Journey trademark'. This means a slow rhythm and a bit sultry atmosphere that gradually becomes more bombastic, culminating in excellent interplay between Neal Schon his powerful guitarplay and Aynsley Dunbar his furious drumming. It's often layered with sensational Minimoog flights or spectacular biting-guitar/flashy Minimoog duels like in People and the great instrumental track Nickel And Dime, how exciting! The keyboard work by Gregg Rolie is very tasteful, ranging frommellow Fender Rhodes electric piano and bombastic Hammond organ runs to spacey keyboards (in the Vangelis-like intro if I Would Find You) and those aforementioned spectacular Minimoog flights. Unfortunately this was the last progressive album that Journey made. The charismatic singer Steve Perry joined the band and on the following 12 albums Journey their sound turned into smooth melodic rock. For me the musical journey was over.

The musical development of Journey strongly reminds me of other USA band Angel, in their early years they made an unique blend of hardrock and symphonic rock, with sensational Moog and Mellotron. The albums Angel (75) and Helluvaband (76) are Heavy Prog 'classics' but then Angel changed their music into harder-edged melodic rock. However, the difference is that Angel only got the status of a cult band for 'Heavy Prog aficionados' while Journey became a very popular 'stadium-rock' band, their albums sold millions and millions, don't stop believing.

How thrilled I was in 1975 to read that Gregg Rolie and Neil Schonn had founded a new band, with drummer Aynsley Dunbar (ex-Zappa), wow, two ex-Santana members and one ex-Zappa, high expectations, wasn't that a supergroup?! Well, for me Journey their eponymous debut album is still their best effort, on this highly acclaimed record the band sounds as an exciting, very progressive blend of several styles, from rock and blues to jazzrock. Their trademark is the combination of the heavy guitar work by Neal Schonn (biting and howling with frequent use of the wah-wah pedal), the often furious drumming by Aynsley Dunbar and the very distinctive vocals with that melancholical undertone by Gregg Rolie. Especially in tracks like Of A Lifetime (great build-up and grand finale), the alternating intrumental Topaz (from swinging Fender Rhodes piano to biting wah-wah guitar) and the final track Mystery Mountain (great interplay between organ, guitar and drums). The other four tracks are worth a listening session too: In The Morning Day delivers halfway a spectacular break with echo-effects, swirling Hammond and blistering guitar, the intrumental Kohoutek has an ominous atmosphere, a strong build-up and a sensational Minimoog solo and In My Lonely Feeling/Conversations contains lush Hammond organ, a dynamic rhythm-section and biting, wah-wah drenched guitar. This is the typical early Journey sound and it inpired me to go to Pinkpop in 1978 (and two years later to The Hague) to witness my beloved Journey. I was pleased with the live performance but ..... Journey with singer Steve Perry (who joined the band in 1977) is another musical story ....

For a brief time in the mid-eighties, Journey were a favourite band of mine. I had only four albums - Evolution, Departure, Escape, and Frontiers - but those four cassettes got played an awful lot for a few months. I never knew about their prog rock fusion beginnings nor their story of how Steve Perry came in, took control, and wrote the band into success. When I started buying CDs, the only Journey I got was Escape, and that's how it stayed for almost two decades. Finally last year, I bought the debut album but was not completely won over.

Then it happened that I heard Dream Theater's Big Medley which included a segment of Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin' and I recalled that old classic song. I thought back fancifully to Evolution and considered that it may have actually been my favourite Journey album. So I ordered a remastered copy of the album on CD.

At first, it was almost disappointing. What was wrong with the sound quality? I remembered that songs sounding stronger, the guitar playing more exciting, and Perry's vocals - fantastic in their white soul feel - not going shrill at times. When I read the reviews on PA, I was both shocked but not really surprised to read so many 1 star reviews. Basically, fans of the pre-Perry albums were not ever going to accept the band going... commercial. Although some still gave their approval begrudgingly to Infinity, Evolution was considered a giant leap backward.

Truth be told, Evolution does spend most of its energy on more straightforward rock. Though this is obviously a band with musical talent, there is little to no effort spent on creating the more progressive style of jam band that Neil Schon and Greg Rollie had set out to create after leaving Santana. In an interview with both members I watched very recently, both of them were against bringing a crooner into the band and wanted a screamer. But their manager insisted and Perry became the new vocalist. An ambitious writer, Steve Perry transformed Journey into a sing-along rock band without the prog.

As for my own opinion of Evolution, a third listen to my CD has left me regarding it more favourably. It's because the album is an old favourite that I can't be too critical of it, though I admit it is not an album for a prog list. Actually, I do like Steve Perry's voice very much; Neil Schon, though not a technical wizard, plays with great expression and emotive power; and the songs show a band with an ear for variety. The sound quality still lacks something, I feel; however, with the volume up it's easy to get into those old tunes once more. Hearing this I am now inspired to finally buy Infinity and I think I should get Departure and Frontiers again, too.

I can understand and agree with those who prefer Journey's first three albums. For a more progressive band, that's the place to look. But I think that Evolution is still only part of the journey (so to speak) before the band became the huge commercial success they were in the eighties. This album still retains some of that seventies' magic. I give it a personal rating of three and a half stars as a rock album, but two and a half stars as a prog album, rounding down for this site.

After the triumphant trilogy of "Departure," "Escape" and "Frontiers," where San Francisco based JOURNEY found huge success after having tamed down their crossover progressive tendencies that went straight for the hard rock and AOR jugular they succeeded in a short time to become one of the biggest bands in the world. And after a several year run and a slew of hit singles and successful tours, the band was on burnout mode and needed some time off. After 1983's "Frontiers," both lead singer Steve Perry and guitarist Neil Schon would release their own solo albums with Perry finding yet more success on the pop charts. After three long years in the mid-80s when the music scene was quickly changing the band finally released the followup RAISED ON RADIO in 1986 but not until after Perry got a taste for creative control where he produced his solo release and wanted to quit the band however keyboardist Jonathan Cain had other ideas and wanted Perry back in the limelight to help out on his new music, but it came with a price. Perry's newfound taste for independence resulted in both bassist Ross Valory and drummer Steve Smith being fired from the band as well as the album cover depicting the radio station that Perry's parents owned. Perry took the reins in the production department as well and as a result a JOURNEY album was released that sounded unlike anything in their previous catalogue and more like a followup to Perry's 1984 solo "Street Talk."

Technically the group was whittled down to a trio but in reality hosted a whole army of guest musicians, associate producers and engineers. The main newbies were session musician and bassist Randy Jackson who appeared on all kinds of albums by Jean-Luc Ponty, Billy Cobham and a million others and drummer Larrie Londin who also appeared on a million and one different artists' recordings. In addition there were extra bassists and drummers on board as well as Dan Hull contributing a new sound to the band - the saxophone. Despite the new arrangements and style shifts, the band found another top 10 album that would go double platinum as there was enough pop rock and AOR appeal to please the second wave fans of their career. The band would also score four top 40 hits and have yet another successful tour. However this was the end of JOURNEY at least for a while. It was clear that the band no longer functioned in meaningful way and after this album they would split until their reunion ten years later with the album "Trial By Fire."

RAISED ON RADIO is one of the stubbornly proud incarnations of the mid-80s with all of the cheese and pompous glory associated with that time period, but for what it is, i have to say that there are appealing pop rock tracks to be found on this one. And in that regard is very similar to almost every JOURNEY album i've encountered. That meaning there are a handful of extremely strong and well constructed pop rock hooks floating around in a few tracks and then a bunch of AOR filler and wimpy arena rock crap. RAISED ON RADIO is no different than the rest actually. Personally i'm quite partial to three of the singles on this one. The upbeat and catchy "Girl Can't Help It" displays the band's pop hook talents as good as anything they had ever concocted. Same with the more energetic "Be Good To Yourself." The slower ballad "I'll Be Alright Without You" also captures Perry's unique crooning abilities to weave magic around an otherwise OK melodic track, however my absolute favorite on the album is the non-single second track "Positive Touch" which is so damn catchy that if you swapped out vocalists could easily fit on Supertramp's "Breakfast In America" with its cleverly crafted groovilisciousness and sizzling sultry sax solos.

Other than the somewhat mesmerizing ballad "The Eyes Of A Woman," i find the remaining tracks to be somewhat lackluster as they exemplify the excess AOR tendencies that were aimed at post pubescent mall rats who lusted over Perry's ridiculous swooning lyrics. Particularly nauseating is the closer "Why Can't This Night Go On Forever" which just reeks of a slow wedding dance ballad when the booze has run low and the sentiments high and a raw slice of AOR hell that sounds like a reworked production of their previous hit "Faithfully". The rest of the tracks including the hit single "Suzanne" are just to syrupy and just don't come close in quality to the strongest tracks on the album. This could have been a very satisfying album overall if they would've stuck to the sultry swinging sax type of tracks that work quite well with their songwriting skills. Unfortunately that was not to be and JOURNEY once again released an album that i keep around for a few tracks that i listening to but this is just another album that has too much filler. 3 stars for the strong tracks that makes this a decent listen with some selective skipping.