Journey – Greatest Hits Vol. 2 CD (2011) review and Giveaway

[tater1977]

Journey – Greatest Hits Vol. 2 CD (2011) review and giveaway

January 8, 2012
http://www.retroblog.net/2012/01/08/jou ... -giveaway/

( Scroll to the bottom of the article for instructions on how to enter the giveaway )...

After 23 years and over 25 million copies sold, Journey’s Greatest Hits finally gets a second volume. It’s pretty much a no-brainer to release a “sequel” to one of rock’s best selling compilations. I’m just surprised it took the record label this long to do it. Anyway, the new release is titled, what else, Journey – Greatest Hits Vol. 2.

I’m happy to report that the new release doesn’t appear to be some sort of haphazardly put-together “money-grab”. In fact, none other than the great Steve Perry was on-hand for the remastering of this release. It has been said that Perry still has approval rights for anything related to Journey’s back catalog. Even though he hasn’t been the frontman for the band since 1996, it’s the Perry fronted-era that matters most, at least in terms of sales. And so just like the first volume, volume 2 focuses on Perry related material. Nothing from 1996 onward.

Now, it’d be hard for any band to top those 16 tracks from the first compilation. There’s just no-denying the power of classics like “Don’t Stop Believin’”, “Who’s Crying Now”, “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” and “Open Arms”. So, Volume 2 is a bit of a step down in terms of actual bona-fide “hits”. But as a companion piece to the first Greatest Hits disc, it actually works. Songs like “Stone in Love”, “After the Fall”, “Escape” and “Suzanne” stand up pretty well with the previous volume. There are a couple of odd choices that I personally would have changed out though. I would have chosen “Message of Love” instead of “When I Think of You” from the album “Trial by Fire”. And maybe something like “Why Can’t This Night Go On Forever” in place of “Good Morning Girl”. But it’s nice that “Little Girl” was included since it’s on the often overlooked soundtrack album “Dream After Dream”.

As for the remastered sound – there’s noticeable EQ changes on some songs that help bring out some of the low end and soften some of the harshness of the high frequencies. For example “Suzanne” always sounded a bit “bright” on the original CD with not enough bottom so this remaster corrected this and now sounds more evened out. I wouldn’t say this is the “definitive” remaster in terms of perfect audio quality but sound engineer Robert Hadley along with Steve Perry succeeded in achieving a cohesive sound over all the various tracks on this compilation.

So, if you have GH Vol. 1 and want to go a bit deeper into Journey’s catalog, Greatest Hits Vol. 2 is a great buy. As for longtime Journey fans, you probably have all these tracks in your music library but you might still want to check it out for the updated remastered sound.

Journey – Greatest Hits Vol. 2
record label: Columbia/Legacy
released: November 2011
remastered by: Robert Hadley and Steve Perry at The Mastering Lab, Ojai, CA

Oh, yeah, and now about the CD giveaway. I’ve got TWO Journey Greatest Hits Vol. 2 CDs to giveaway! Just check out the “rafflecopter” widget on this page and follow the instructions on how to enter. The main requirement is to leave me a blog comment. But be sure to register via the widget since I’ll be using it to randomly draw out the winners. The deadline for this drawing is January 29, 2012. Thanks and good luck!

[Frontiers65]

Well all I can say is I like my old cd's fine. I did download this cd but, it does sound louder, but I can turn up the volume for the older cd's.