The Weakest Link: Journey’s Greatest Hits- Round Three

You didn’t send Her your love, so the girl Can’t Help but reject you and leave.

DQ: If someone was interested in checking out a Journey studio album after this, where would you point them to?


R1: Be Good To Yourself
R1: When You Love A Woman
R2: Send Her My Love
R2: Girl Can’t Help It

 

Either Infinity or Escape.

 

Let’s ...
Ask The Lonely
I’ll Be Alright

 

Lights. L,T,S. So incredibly sappy, like lullabies for demented adults. No idea why Send Her My Love is gone already, I mean that's even sappier but at least it's a quality song.

Album would definitely be Escape, easily their best and nearly perfect; or from their 1st phase, Look Into The Future. Some great stuff on there.

 

Albums - journey and escape to get both sides of the band.
Lovin touchin and separate ways

 

Well, I've voted for the Raised On Radio track again and then it gets tricky. Alright then, it'll have to be Any Way You Want It. Good song but something has to give.

I'd probably suggest people listen to Departure & Evolution to get their heads around what Steve Perry era Journey is all about. I love all of the '78-'83 albums but these two are my favourites followed by Frontiers, Infinity & Escape in that order. For me the last album is the least brilliant of the Big Five. It contains some of their very best songs but four that I find a bit dreary which is an odd state of affairs for classic Journey.

 

C'mon, just because
Lovin, Touchin, Squeezin
was played 24/7 on the radio back in the day
doesn't mean it's not a great song.

Take yourself back to late seventies, your in high school, it's friday night, your buddies are outside your house at the curb hanging out the window of your best friends Trans Am hollering for you to hurry up. You take a quick last glance in the mirror to check your mullet is just right and tear out the door and hop in the back seat. Later that night this song comes on the radio as you are making out at the drive in with your girlfriend ! Now go ahead and vote.

 

On further reflection Who's Cryin Now kicks Asks the Lonely's ass. WITS still in the out list.

Can't go wrong starting with Infinity, although I'm mildly shattered at my personal faves Raised On Radio and Trial By Fire being so ruthlessly eviscerated lol!

Escape? Dreary? For me Escape perfectly captures the energy and joie de vivre of being 20.

Frontiers would be my last place choice, although it would've been a very different beast and probably outsold Escape had they not cut Only the Young and Liberty. WTF were they thinking? Talk about an own goal!

 

Voted for "I'll Be Alright Without You" (a generic chick song) and "Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'" (all those na nas get on my nerves sometime).

And the answer to the question is: E5C4P3.

 

Journey was never played on the radio in my neck of the woods and despite the worldwide popularity of Don't Stop Believing, I have still never heard them over the air waves. Girl Can't even get a fair hearing in this poll. It is still LTS (past its prime) and Open Arms. An appeal to reason!

There is a real difference between Rollie Journey and Cain Journey. If I was recommending an album it would be Infinity from the former and Frontiers from the latter. I always thought it was Only the Young and Ask The Lonely that were cut from Frontiers - what an album if they were on it!
TBH if I had to recommend any one album it would be Captured.

 

Only the Young and Ask the Lonely, I like them both, especially the former but I feel all of the other songs are "better" and feel these two would be the most disposable.

 

I think we definitely have a different idea about what makes Journey great. For me, ROR is the worst thing that the band have recorded. This would be a boring forum if we all liked the same things though, wouldn't it?

As for Escape, when it's good, it's breath taking (Still They Ride, Mother Father, all the hits) but there are four songs that I always skip: Dead Or Alive (sounds like a Point Blank B-side), Lay It Down (the band sound like a karaoke version of Triumph, here), Keep On Running & the title track (yawnsome!). Obviously you hear things in these songs that I don't, and all power to you!

Thinking about it, those are probably the heaviest songs on the record so maybe Journey just don't convince me when they try to metal it up?

In any event, I agree with you about Only The Young and Liberty!

 

Great point about the 2 very different eras needing representation, although I'd choose ROR as the best example of the Perry/Cain songwriting era where they really let their R&B sensibilities rip. ITA that Captured is a GREAT intro to Journey, to the point where I don't listen to the album versions of anything that I can hear live from that album.

The cut tracks from Frontiers included Only the Young, Ask the Lonely, Liberty and (I think) Only Solutions - all better IMO than Edge of the Blade and Backtalk, plus All That Really Matters with Jon Cain on lead vocals which was probably a wise decision. He's not that bad

 

Dude, is there anything more train-wreck entertaining than Journey fans going to war over Rolie vs Perry vs Augeri vs Soto vs Pineda, prog rock vs pop or Frontiers vs ROR? The Israelis and Palestinians ain't got nothin' on us!

My musical soul is 2/3 soul, R&B, Motown and maybe 1/3 rock and it's the heavy soul and R&B and blues influences in Steve Perry's voice and Gregg Rolie and Neal Schon's playing that keep drawing me back to Journey. Having said that I listened to Frontiers again yesterday (twice) and really enjoyed it, even the back half.

I actually can't really argue with you on 3 of those tracks (although they rock live), maybe just in comparison to the brilliance of Mother Father, Still They Ride et al, but the title track IMO is just pure joy and exuberance. I agree that Journey don't always quite get there when they try to be too heavy (sorry Neal Schon), but the results still make for fun listening.

 

We are the Cain and Schon of the Forum.

I reckon that, for me, on their own, Perry is too soulful, Schon wants to be a rock God and Cain is too sappy. Take the centre of the Venn diagram though and the results are, more often than not, remarkable.

 

Only the Young
Who’s Crying Now

DQ: Infinity For the Rollie/Perry era, S/T for the early period, and Escape for the Cain era

 

DQ: Escape

I think it's a near perfect pop rock record

 

The Weakest Link: Journey’s Greatest Hits- Round Four

 

Maybe the Perry and the Schon as Cain’s a bit sappy poppy even for me (and right now SP and NS are probably getting along better than Cain and Schon )


I like your analysis, although I have a lot of love for Perry's solo stuff - too much soulful navel-gazing is not a problem for me!


Neal wants to be the metal rock God, when he should just accept his true nature and be the best, soulfulest melodic rock guitarist he can be.


Sadly, we've probably heard the last new music from Journey. Would be nice if they could all get it together one last time. Hell, I'd settle for SP and NS taking to the stage together one last time, even if it's just doing a few old blues numbers.

 

Now that Schon has worked with Greg Rolie again in Santana, it would be fascinating if they did something together, possibly with Steve on vocals. They could call the band Infinity or maybe Expedition.

 

Although I'm salivating at the thought of hearing those 3 on stage together again, I seriously doubt it'll happen as I picked up on some bad vibes coming from GR towards SP at the Hall of Fame induction. Quite aside from the eternal issue of cajoling the rainbow unicorn of the music world back onto the stage

As much as I love 80s and 90s Journey, Infinity through Departure are on heavy rotation, I much prefer GR to JC (think he's taking his initials a little too seriously these days) on keys and I love GR's duets with SP.

 

Yeah, I'm expecting world peace, the Second Coming (which would cheer Cain up, at least), and a Welsh World Cup victory to happen before Steve Perry does anything of note!

Greg Rolie has certainly been missed. And I say this as someone who very much enjoys Cain's balladry.

 

Be serious man. Steve Perry releasing his new album complete with world tour and singing live on breakfast TV is a far more likely prospect than Wales winning the World Cup .

I ain't stopped believin' (sorry ) that we'll hear from The Voice again. Just like Jon Cain I have faith in the existence of something I'll probably never see or hear .

He deserved a much bigger career. Two-time Hall of Fame inductee, for Santana no less. And the Rolie/Perry era live performances were something else.