Andrew's GENERATIONS review due Monday!

[NealIsGod]

Looking VERY forward to hear what the man has to say!

[Rockindeano]

Andrew agrees with me. Trust me. Also Nealisgod, I responded to your Howard Stern question over at VH board...

[jrnyman28]

Should be very interesting, especially since his 'honor' was called into question by a Noticeboard Poster. That person doesn't care for "Generations" as much as Arrival and said that if Andrew ranked it higher then he must be kissing Frontiers ass...

[NealIsGod]

What is Noticeboard?

[Rockindeano]

Andrew doesn't need to kiss anyone's ass....MR is a huge outlet for these companies...and MR is reputable..

[jrnyman28]

What is Noticeboard?

To the side of the front page of www.melodicrock.com is The Noticeboard. It is another 'forum', all topics.

[Red13JoePa]

Andrew, bring the review on. Look forward to it. Anybody saying he kisses ass can look back to 2000 when Andrew previewed the Arrival material and was worried about the ballad heaviness. Did Journey pull a Joe Elliot? No. The band responded to him directly in interviews and that was the first red flag they had that they needed to record WGW and NCC. Before the napster greek chorus fiasco, Andrew said it.

F Joe Elliot.

Rockndeano, are talking about DLR taking over Stern's slot on radi?

[The_Noble_Cause]

To hell with Andrew's lazy, slothful ass, here's MY official review TODAY:

This latest Journey album is the modern day equivalent of "Esc4P3" for me. And by that I mean there is a ton of rockers on here. "Generations" might finally answer the age old question, "can a rock album have one too many rockers on it?" In the case of Journey's "Generations" I am afraid (for me) the answer is yes. Songs like "Better Together" and "Out of Harm's Way" are more hard edged than what most have come to expect from Journey, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just as long as they are countered with a good mixture of more melodic keyboard driven rock (see "Place in Your Heart" or the perfected archetype "Ask the Lonely"). Then again, maybe the band's sound is just evolving for the times and I am about to get left behind in the dust. After all, the keyboard driven rockers are usually the ones that sound the most dated.

I thought "Frontiers" had the balance perfectly, but this album is similar to "Esc4p3" in how the rock songs (lay it down, keep on runnin, dead or alive) seemed to overshadow the more memorably melodic pieces. Perhaps, Journey's last two albums spoiled me. Those albums each had 15 or so tracks, so there was much bigger room for error permitted.
But with Generations' compacted 12 tracks, each song really needed to shine and sadly, it misses the mark by a slight hair.

This album for me personally needed one or two more melodic pieces interspered in between the harder-edged rockers.
Judging from the provided sample, "It's never too late", probably would've done just the trick.

All in all I like every song (and actually LOVE quite a few) with the exception of "Believe" which I find to be repetitous, seemingly unfinished lyrically, and insultingly vapid.

Just wish this album was a smidgeon more "Frontiers" and a little less "Esc4p3".

[Rockindeano]

To hell with Andrew's lazy, slothful ass, here's MY official review TODAY:

Yeah, where has He been?

This album for me personally needed one or two more melodic pieces interspered in between the harder-edged rockers.
Judging from the provided sample, "It's never too late", probably would've done just the trick.

Exactly. Perfectly said..


I am going to say Andrew gives this CD a 98 and says it is MR's record of 2005 so far.

[The_Noble_Cause]

This album for me personally needed one or two more melodic pieces interspered in between the harder-edged rockers.
Judging from the provided sample, "It's never too late", probably would've done just the trick.

Exactly. Perfectly said..

Sadly Deano I don't know enough musical parlance to articulately get across what I want to say about this cd. However, using "Arrival" as some sort of benchmark or frame of reference, I would say "Generations" needs one more melodic rocker along the lines of "Higher Place" or "I got a Reason" and a few less like "All The Things I Love about you" which has that abrasive, more harder-edged vibe. Those songs are good, but are best when interspersed with the traditional soft-rock, feel-gooders that Journey is reknowed for. That's what I love so much about Frontiers; both parts progressive AND retrogressive (or stagnant, rather).

The only rock song on "Generations" that has that unmistakably Journey-sound is "The Place in Your Heart".
Hey, I'm all for this band's sound evolving, but I wish this cd had one more of those.