thank youI despise Steve Perry.
He may have ‘hit it big’ with Journey’ but he ruined a GREAT BAND.
Before Perry Journey made wonderful exciting music.
After Perry they made mass produced bubble gum pop music.
His arrival was a huge loss...for the world of quality music.
Steve Perry was to Journey as Michael McDonald was to the Doobie Brothers.
Despise Steve Perry? Wow.
thank youYeah yeah, this tired old line is getting a little stale. Did you write for Rolling Stone in 1981 perchance?
No doubt about it that Journey, Look into the Future, and Next had awesome moments. The instrumentals are gold: Topaz, Kohoutek, Nickel and Dime. But the pre-Perry lyrics were not that great, and both Gregg and Neal have said numerous times they were foundering by 77 and up for a change in direction. Look at Genesis too for Pete's sake...they spent the entire 70s writing long prog-rock opuses, and some point they just had to start doing something a little different.
Journey's lyrics improved immensely on Infinity. And Perry and Rolie's voices were just magic together. They still kept doing hard rockers, still kept doing blues, still kept their trademark space-rock sound. They added some infectious upbeat rockers to their repertoire (among my favorites).
But most of the ingredients were already there. Go back to the "Charge of the Light Brigade" demos they cut in 1973...look up a song "Angels in Heaven." Very sweet little instrumental and you can definitely hear some precursors of their post-1978 sound. They also used themes from "In My Lonely Feeling/Conversations" in the Dream, after Dream soundtrack.
The band wasn't *ruined* by Perry...changed yes, but not nearly as much as people think.
To each his own.
Journey’s “Escape” album is a great album start to finish. Even without “Don’t Stop Believin’” it’s a great album. “Open Arms” isn’t my favorite, though.