And we finish up our arena rock tour with the first platinum album by Steve Perry, excuse me, Journey.

Infinity

Preconceived Notions: As I alluded to above, Steve Perry is Journey. When I came to Journey as a kid it wasn’t for the guitar solos or the rhythm section or the surprisingly tepid drums—it was for Perry’s voice, especially on the ballads. Perry was the Lord of the Slow Dance, the King of the Singalong Chorus. Yeah, they occasionally hit the jackpot with one of their driving rockers like “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)¹” or “Anyway You Want It,” but that wasn’t what made Journey oodles and oodles of money in the late 70’s and early 80’s. I know Journey has been touring without Perry for the last 26 years, but I have no desire to endorse that bullshit with any of my money. Without Perry, Journey is just some dudes band led by guys who used to be in the Babys (no, not John Waite) and Santana (and not Carlos Santana, either).

Merch I Owned: The only Journey album I ever bought was Frontiers, home of the aforementioned “Seperate Ways” and the all-time classic ballad “Faithfully,” which I would attempt to sing along to every time it came on my radio². It also had an underrated side two, which I ended up playing more than the “hits” side. Maybe that bodes well for the purely album tracks on this one?

Miscellany: My favorite Journey song, like my favorite song by many artists³, is an almost willfully off-the-beaten-path kind of choice. I have always loved “The Party’s Over,” a minor Journey single that peaked at number 34 on Billboard and doesn’t even merit a Wikipedia entry. I guess I’ve always loved the way it fits in the pocket between Journey’s harder-driving tunes and their ballads, and feel it’s one of Perry’s most accomplished performances, while sounding effortless at the same time. And the melody works— I love the way the guitar runs underneath it like a snake, winding through the song. I also have a very soft spot for Perry’s solo song “Foolish Heart,” another single that didn’t hit all that well (#18).

Track by Track:

Lights- I’ve never liked this song as much as everyone else does, but it is our first introduction to Mr. Perry. A little too bluesy for me (quite unlike most Perry-era Journey) and too static— we have a louder chorus, but not a faster one— even the bridge with the requisite guitar solo (we’ll get to those) doesn’t really cook. If Perry wasn’t singing, you could convince yourself it was Stevie Ray Vaughn. That’s not what I’m looking for here.

Feeling That Way— I love that Perry doesn’t sing first on this song. It’s like he strolls in to save the song (because Greg Rolie is smooth but bland—there’s a reason Journey went looking for a lead singer). Like “Lights,” this isn’t as driving as later Journey rockers (even “Don’t Stop Believin’” is more propulsive than this). Here, only the guitar solo moves. 

Anytime— Greg Rolie is singing again, but I don’t mind him as much here (this seems to be his vocal wheelhouse). Steve shows up in the background, and doesn’t do much. However, the guitar licks on this one meld perfectly with Rolie’s vocal, the chorus is nice, and it feels like the whole band is simpatico on this one. This is usually played in tandem with “Feeling That Way” on the radio, but it’s only when “Anytime” starts that my ears perk up. One of the better songs on the album.

La Do Da—This shows up on a number of Journey live albums and setlists, so somebody out there likes it. There’s a chuggy guitar bit that starts the song that reminds me of “Back Talk” off of Frontiers, but what this sounds like more than anything is second-tier April Wine⁴. With dumber lyrics. And another extended guitar solo. Somewhere between irritating and forgettable.

Patiently—Perry has penned/sung some amazing ballads, but this is not one of them. This is the first song he and Neil Schon wrote together, and you can see the vague outlines of the template they would use on later albums. On “Patiently”, though, the ballad part is way too syrupy and shopworn before tripping into full-blown guitar rock. Later ballads had a much more seamless build to them— here, you can see all the cracks.

Wheel in the Sky—Upped a notch because my wife really likes this song. The lyrics are better, even if they turn on one metaphor that they drag through the whole song.  Perry sings this one extremely well— he’s the main reason to stick around for this one. The guitar work is solid (albeit a little tiresome by this point)⁵, and it’s out before it overstays its welcome too much. This is a “quiet rocker,” not a ballad, but it’s the closest this album has to a decent one of those. Not in the upper echelon of Journey classics, but it is one of the top tunes on Infinity.

Somethin to Hide—Another Perry/Schon number. The arrangement is a bit more interesting than the preceding non-single album tracks, and I appreciate the 10cc harmonies on the bridge (sounds like they cribbed them from “The Things We Do For Love,” released a year earlier). And the guitar solo is shorter. Still not as good as anything on Frontiers or Escape.

Winds of March—The longest song on the album. The buildup is quasi-ballad material with a madrigal lilt, and does nothing for me. It follows the same format as Styx’s “Queen of Spades” (a much, much better song), where we do the slow dance thing for a couple minutes, then explode into frenzied soloing. Here though, we get a very funky keyboard solo that doesn’t fit with the rest of the song. At all. The song gets a D, but the keyboard solo is at least a B-. And then we have another !@#$ guitar solo.

Can Do—Is this Foghat?⁶ Are we sure? And if Journey is going to ape Foghat and insist on all these damn guitar solos, could they try to do one as good as the one at the end of “Easy Money”?

Opened the Door—A color-by-numbers ballad, but the choruses are pretty, we have some nice harmonizing, a bit more of an emphasis on keyboards for most of the song…and then we close the album out with another guitar solo. Sigh.

Final Impressions/Evaluation: Look, most everybody’s first day of school sucks, right? This is Perry’s first album with Journey, and it took awhile for the pairing to really produce results. Neither this or the next studio album (Evolution, featuring “Lovin, Touchin, Squeezin”) made the Billboard top 10 album chart— it wasn’t until 1980’s Departure that Journey accomplished that feat. That being said, this isn’t a very good album. The singles are fine, but there isn’t a non-single track on this album I truly enjoy. If you appreciate the singles from this era of the band, I would highly recommend seeking out a greatest hits package.

1. The video to this song is another candidate for Worst Video of All Time: we get a woman fast-walking around a warehouse, way too many close-ups of Steve Perry’s face, and the band playing air guitar (and air keyboard and air drums). Eventually the boys find their instruments, but they play them about as convincingly as the imaginary ones. And we get lots of close-ups of their handsome mugs, too— sometimes three or four in a shot! It’s all very earnest and high-strung and ridiculous, and it never fails to make me chuckle. ↩︎
2.  That song had some hella high notes! ↩︎
3. My favorite Prince song is “Something in the Water (Does Not Compute).” Favorite R.E.M. tune is “Country Feedback.” Favorite Beatles is “Dear Prudence.” You get the idea. ↩︎
4. No offense to April Wine—not in the slightest. Nature of the Beast is a very solid early 80’s album, and proved 70’s rockers could still survive (for a little while longer) in the New Wave Eighties. And “All Over Town” still kicks ass, all these years later. ↩︎
5. Every song on this album has a guitar solo. Every damn one. And most of them aren’t particularly memorable or gripping. ↩︎
6. Yeah, I don’t mind Foghat, either. ↩︎