Print
E-Mail
tool name
closeWednesday, Aug. 05, 2009
The genius of Journey
By HEATHER SVOKOS
Groans. Hipper-than-thou huffing. You’ve-gotta-be-kidding-me eye rolls.
This is the palette of expressions that typically greets a Journey reference. Whether it’s because of the hair, the regrettable fashions or the cheesy, early-MTV close-ups of Steve Perry, Journey endures as one of rock’s easiest punch lines.
But they’re also one of its greatest guilty pleasures.
In our cars. At home. In bars packed with happy drunks. Steve Perry’s powerhouse tenor and Neil Schon’s hooky guitar licks erupt out of the speakers, and in no time flat, the earworms have burrowed into our brains. Whole crowds begin to wail off-key and fire up their best air-guitar moves.
Credit the musical marriage of Perry and Schon. Perry had the pipes. Rolling Stone magazine put him on its list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time." But Schon was (and still is) the band’s leader. In fact, he and the rest of Journey (sans Perry) perform Friday at Winstar Casino, just across the border in Oklahoma. Tickets are $65-$85, so fans are still willing to pay big money to hear the genius of Journey, especially these truly wonderful songs:
Any Way You Want It. When the song comes out of the gate, it comes out like gangbusters — perfectly timed, thrusting syncopation: "ANYway you want it, THAT’s the way you need it, ANYway you want it." And then the song immediately rips into Schon’s infectious jigsaw guitar riff. Perfecto.
Lovin’ Touchin’ Squeezin’. The first thing you remember from this song is the "Na na na na na nas" at the end (especially the final a cappella bars). But oh, there’s so much more to this infidelity lament. The intro: slow, sexy drumbeat, piercing guitar, piano tinkle, then a bluesy power guitar. Perry’s vocals start restrained at first ("You make me wee-ee-eep, and wanna die . . . "), but as the power of the song builds, he unleashes his arena chops, his falsetto and his vengeful pleasure: "It won’t be long, yes, ’til you’re alone/When your lover, oh, he hasn’t come home/’Cause he’s lovin,’ he’s touchin’, he’s squeezin’ another."
Don’t Stop Believin’. There’s no way you can escape this song’s influence in pop culture. It is the top-selling catalog track in iTunes history. It was most famously used in the controversial final scene of The Sopranos, but it also has popped up on everything from the Charlize Theron film Monster and Kanye West’s live shows to American Idol, Family Guy and My Name Is Earl. Most recently, it was the showpiece for the new Fox fall series, Glee, which previewed over the summer. Maybe it’s the city boy-small-town girl story line, or the optimistic message, or the indelible, driving piano intro. Or maybe it’s the unusual song structure, where the anthemic chorus — which I find to be the most boring part of the song — doesn’t come in until the very end. We’ll take it all.
Open Arms. It’s tempting to dismiss this one as a big ball of cheese. ’Cause it kind of is. But cheese and pop-rock transcendence aren’t mutually exclusive. The song opens with a tender, rather beautiful piano melody, and as Perry’s aching rasp fills the slow-build power ballad, an earworm is born — perfectly ripe for barroom singalongs.
DFW.com is pleased to be able to offer its users the opportunity to make comments and hold conversations online. However, the interactive nature of the internet makes it impractical for our staff to monitor each and every posting.
Since DFW.com does not control user submitted statements, we cannot promise that readers will not occasionally find offensive or inaccurate comments posted on our website. In addition, we remind anyone interested in making an online comment that responsibility for statements posted lies with the person submitting the comment, not DFW.com.
If you find a comment offensive, clicking the exclamation icon will flag the comment for review by the administrators; we are counting on the good judgment of all our readers to help us.
