My Amazon Reviews: Journey "Departure"

The Last of Journey's Bug Albums
3 Out Of 5 Stars

Journey had become hungry for the success they'd tasted via "Infinity" and "Evolution," each exponentially growing in sales. Steve Perry had effectively cornered the band's microphone and Neal Schon beginning to trim his soloing down to bite-sized arena ready applause grabbers, "Departure" was their most attention ready albums to date. The band's appetite for commercial success came with a price as keyboardist Gregg Rollie called it quits soon after (to eventually be replaced by Jonathan Caine). That seemed to matter little to Journey's growing legion of fans as "Departure" soon found itself in the top ten and the initial single, the pulse pounding "Any Way You Want It" soon entered the top 20, another first for the band. Even "Walks Like a Lady," Perry's attempt at while blues and one of the more unusual singles from the band's hits period, sounded effective.

However, Journey still had lingering traces of wanted to have their pop success and prog-rocker status and eat it, too. That meant for vocal production trickery on "People and Places" and phase shifting guitars that dominate "Precious Time," along with Rollie's harmonica. And while it didn't become a breakout single, Journey's penchant for mammoth balladeering, "Stay Awhile" gives a preview of the huge hits that would start once "Escape" became an even more successful album than "Departure."

Granted, FM album rockers fell all over "Departure" when it came to picking out songs to play. But it's obvious now that Journey's albums were never better than the singles. There's a reason the original "Journey's Greatest Hits" competes with the likes of similar sets by Bob Marley, Eagles and CCR for the greatest selling albums of all-time, and that is because when the band went looking for a hit, they knew how to make them fire off. You can't get around that many of these songs are just pedestrian rockers, like "Someday Soon" (sung by Rollie) or "Line of Fire's" run of the mill guitar boogie. That doesn't discount the fact that each Journey album in this three album arc had extraordinary hits. So collect away, fanatics. The rest of us can get by on best of collections, of which there are now many.