My 1001 Albums Journey

Oh dear the 80’s weren’t kind to legends from earlier decades were they? Awful production. Splashy Phil Collins style drums, hideous rubber band bass lines, unnecessary sax solos, and synths being manipulated by people who don’t know what they’re doing. Poor Tina gamely tries to power through but the song choice does her no favours. Anne Peebles’s understated triumph I Can’t Stand The Rain gets blasted away like it’s Nutbush City Limits. It doesn’t work. The Beatles Help - which probably could have survived a big eighties arrangement with Tina going full throttle gets the soul piano ballad treatment. The best effort here is Al Green’s Let Stay Together. That’s because it’s producers - Heaven 17 know how to make a synth pop record. Still it sold well and gave Tina a comfortable old age so every cloud …

Good album. Stevie is so talented and at the top of his game at this point in the 70’s that even in second gear, as he is here, it sounds beautiful. It’s laid back and almost easy listening music but it consistently sounds warm, pleasant and interesting.

While the U.K. had punk and new wave America had this. And Boston and Journey. The awful last knockings of classic rock was shrill vocals, lack of harmony, keyboard flourishes and if all ideas run out fill the space with unwanted guitar frills The spandex clad glam metallers that followed must have heard cash tills amongst this ill executed cacophony. America produced some of the greatest music of all time in the eighties but it was made a long long way from the cars.