MR

I've been on a Journey run as of late, particularly their earliest Gregg Rolie era. Being a big progressive rock fan, I really love those albums with Rolie. His organ and synth work is truly mesmerizing, as is Schon's phenomenal guitar playing. I also dig George Tickner's work on second guitar.

Anyway, after revisiting the self-titled Journey disc after a long time, I just noticed how much I love this period of the band and decided to review it at the website I write for. We normally just do new releases, but I thought what the hell, people need to learn about Journey, be it with or witout Perry.

Here's the link to my review in case anyone's interested:

http://www.seaoftranquility.org/reviews ... nt&id=3149

I'd love to hear what you guys think of the stuff with Rolie and their somewhat fusiony prog stuff.

Thanks!

It is good, for that type of music. Not my cup of tea, for use, but better than the other two pre-Perry cds. Unique in the fact that 2 guitarist on it.-ERIC

Love, love, love the old stuff, in particular the first album. Look Into The Future is pretty good too, but Next is unfortunately tied with ROR for my least favorite Journey albums. That isn't to say they're bad, just not as consistently satisfying to me.

Great review, by the way.

Still have it. I consider it the best material from Journey.

Love the first three albums. Great music. Having had the opportunity this past summer to witness a few of those early tunes played live was the highlight of the tour for me. Never thought I would get the chance. Wish Rolie could have been there, but still awesome.

I have it. What do I think? Eh.... .
With the pre-perry sampling on Time3 I never really need to revist the first 3.

You cannot adequately judge the first three albums from the songs on Time3. Those songs were chosen for their similarity to Rush and Kansas songs, trying to show that they ripped off Journey, rather than showcasing the best songs. Also, there's an unreleased track on there that was unreleased for a reason. "Cookie Duster" does not really represent the tone of the Journey albums of the pre-Perry days.

The compilers of Time3 got it right by including "Of A Lifetime," one of the earliest and best songs in the Journey catalog. The first album is a masterpiece of progressive rock, and the critique I hear most often about these albums is that they are largely instrumental, but that's just a lame excuse for not given the albums a fair listen, and it goes to show how most people can't appreciate prog rock.

The vocal melodies in songs like "Of A Lifetime" and "In The Morning Day" are very catchy, and if given a more restrictive arrangment, might have been radio hits. The genius of this album is that the band did not put restrictions on the music. "In The Morning Day": starts out as a potential AM radio hit but turns into an FM radio masterpiece.

The band struggles a little on the next two releases to match the greatness of the first album, but there is some great material on those releases (the title tracks from Look Into the Future and Next are both prime songs). If I were to compile a best of the Rollie-fronted Journey years, here would be my list:

Of A Lifetime
In The Morning Day
Topaz
It's All Too Much
Look Into The Future
I'm Gonna Leave You
Spaceman
I Would Find You
Next
Karma

Greg

I'm not judging the first 3 albums based on Time3. I went back and bought them. Listened to them multiple times, will listen to them again.
That said, I can see there's a reason they picked the ones that went on Time3. And I'll listen to disc 1 of that from now on far more often than those albums themselves.

I agree with you that Journey is better than both Look Into The Future and Next.

Of the 6 Journey albums I have heard it is my favorite.

The first three are good, but I usually only listen to the tracks with vocals.