Agreed. I don’t get the Steve Perry hate. He was an amazing talent for
certain. Fame really had a terrible effect on him though later
In life. He lives a quiet and sane life now. Seems like a likable guy.
From what I remember, it pretty much revolved around “Dude looks (and sounds) like a lady.” I personally like the high pitched vocals in rock music, myself, so long as it’s technically sound. Magic Man by Heart is one of my all time faves, which was from the same time as early Perry, and faced pushback as well for not being true rock. Some just don’t like that sound, especially from a man. Could be jealousy as well, however, as few can sing like that. Mike Matijevic and Bruce Dickinson are some of the few others who actually had the chops.
As I remember it, it was fed by all the rock magazines (like Rolling Stone) who could not STAND Journey, called them commercial sell-outs etc. Their fans were devoted to them. The music press was not.
I became a fan in the early to mid-1980s, and I couldn’t tell other guys that, because they were too cool with their Zeppelin and their Floyd and whatever the heck else they were listening to. I once tried to tell someone that Journey did hard rock numbers and he laughed at me.
Now that all that high school pretentious BS is over with, people can sit back and just listen to the music on its own with more of an open mind, and that’s when we can realize the talents of the people involved.
And some of the Steve Perry hate comes from people in the Bay area who got used to their sound from 74-77 and then couldn’t adapt to the new frontmen. Even Robert Fleischman, more of a traditional rocker voice, said he used to get flipped off on stage every night.
I would have never heard and appreciated their early stuff had I not started with Escape and Frontiers, then been blown away by Infinity through Departure.
“Agreed. I don’t get the Steve Perry hate”
The first couple Journey LPs back in 1975, pre Steve Perry, were Progressive style rock. So certainly their style changed to very melodic mainstream when Perry joined. I can see some early fans being pissed. But they still had Pink Floyd, ELP.....