Saint John wrote:Matthew wrote:and if you think there wasn't heavy production on the early albums then you know even less about Journey than I thought you did.
Pre-Frontiers there was virtually
none. Frontiers started it and ROR and TBF were dominated by it.
PS You've
no idea just how hard I work.

Saint John...Roy Thomas Baker was the ultimate old-school 'throw in the kitchen sink' record producer. He was hired after producing those multi-layered, grandiose Queen albums - and recently he pretty much bankrupted the Darkness by bringing in choirs and bag-pipes and overdubs that took months to record and so on.
You might have got the impression that the early albums weren't heavily produced...because they sound like shit.....but Thomas was brought in as a big league name to do a number on this band.
Also...Perry never disguised the changes in his voice from 1981-1996. Had he still been a warbling and girlish tenor on TBF then your claim about 'smoke and mirrors' might have some substance...but there was no attempt whatsoever to deceive anyone that his voice had aged.