Since I just finished the book and it helped solidify some thoughts swirling in my head about them, I will follow Pip's lead and try my hand at an intro to..
JOURNEY
I'm not the person to get too deep into their history since I am so embarrassingly new to the band. Also, I didn't finish my book about Journey because I was more interested at the time with the book
@-OZ- recommended (thanks again!). Instead I will just babble about random thoughts and how I came to this band and playlist after avoiding them for decades.
I did have my eye on the 70s but nothing had really grabbed my attention. I have a CCR playlist, but like I said in my Oingo posts for MAD31s I really like the idea of bands that have different phases. After Part 1 I went bonkers starting playlists/folders of ideas. Yes, a small part is to see if something stood out for these threads, but mostly I liked that it gave me an outline or reason to listen to more albums and dig deeper. When I got to 4-5 albums that I loved, the playlists just came naturally after that. Those playlists became great way to get people into music outside of here too as I have shared a handful with people IRL. The 70s are one of my sweet spots, so I had a lot of ideas an playlists started. One at the top of my list was actually Boston based on my love for Hitch a Ride. I didn't think there was enough material there so based on a hazy memory of being surprised by another album (not from the 70s, but details, details..) and there sat the Journey folder for months.
A main take away that I got from the book Oz and I were talking about is that I seem to be very firmly in the right of center on the Novelty-Popularity curve. Sometimes it feels like I am almost allergic to popular music, or specifically songs that are hugely popular. Her discussion about this and asking the reader to think about what you picture when you listen to music put my tastes in better perspective for me. I picture myself playing/performing most of the time, or at least it being performed on an instrument. My main connection to music is drums and that is where my prog lean comes into play. As all my playlists have leaned, I also love me some epic guitar solos. Can you squeeze multiple in a song??
BUT I also like structure to my songs and don't like what I find to be excessive noodling. 4mins-8mins for songs seems the usual sweet spot. I am picky about the tone of the singer, but what they are actually saying is far down my list of worries.
All that said, I still like popular bands or songs. But huge hits usually lean shorter, catchier, more repetitive, and/or something groups of people can sing and dance to. Which is why I am less likely to love a hit and if I like a popular band I am more likely to like other songs on the album more or just a weird album of theirs in general. The success rate of me liking hits is way less when it's in my rock comfort zone and even less if I associate you with school dances and weddings. So, that's why I have avoided Journey, or at least didn't have the desire to dig deeper. I liked a couple of the hits when they came up, but there is still one I really do not like. Fitting that it is on my favorite of the Perry albums.
Me really digging the Perry albums was a surprise, but the bigger surprise still was the 3 pre-Perry albums. I had 0 clue about Schon and Rolie let alone them coming from Santana. Dunbar's name I knew, but hadn't associated him with the band either. I fell hard for these early albums - there is a fantastic mix of 70s sounds that I love. They toed that prog line without going overboard and also sprinkled in some epic bangers that reminded me of Mountain. My understanding is that Columbia was about to drop them due to lack of sales and forced the band to take on a singer, and in comes Mr. Perry. It makes sense that the music would change a bit after that and the mainstream hits started within the next few albums and went to the strastosphere in the 80s. It also makes sense that my hit rate with the music was less and less as well. I gave all the albums an honest listen or two and there were songs on the 90s and 00s albums on the first couple versions of the playlist. It just wasn't meant to be. Where my Journey love resides seems to be with one Mr. Gregg Rolie. The other thing that happened when Perry came in is the writing shifted from mostly Schon and Rolie to Schon and Perry. When Rolie was around there is more of a groove and they are still dipping a toe into the prog pool. The first two 70s albums with Perry blew me away, but when I looked it shouldn't have been a surprise that my favorite tracks are all the ones that Rolie was involved with writing or even co-singing. My top 10 is not all Rolie, but I am pretty sure he bats 1.000 for being involved in any song he could have on an album in the top 10. He is very much at the core of this playlist - 21 of 31 coming from those first 6 albums, and most of those with direct contribution. I don't like his replacement much at all, but he sure can help write some mega hits.
TDLR: A handful of fantastic musicians broke off to form a 70s supergroup that made 3 epic albums, but didn't sell enough records. They hire a singer who makes songs more people like, but still manage to make 2 more epic 70s albums. Unfortunately for me, their first big hit is their worst song (and one Perry solo wrote) and it is hard not to double down on what created those results and my love of the music wasn't as consistent. Also Jonathan Cain sucks.
) and you go with Steve Earle, maybe I’ll choose his son, Justin Townes Earle that same round since he’s been in consideration for me since the beginning of this exercise.
