Published on Feb 20, 1999
Steve Perry and Journey may be the only band ever to have the
distinction of having not one, but two different video games
designed about one album – namely, 1981’s
Escape.
While listening to this slab of vinyl dug out of the Pierce
Memorial Archives, I felt the listening experience had to be
enhanced by playing these games. So, courtesy of some emulator
programs, I dusted off the old arcade game Journey (using the MAME
emulator – c’mon, IDSA, get off their back, and make the situation
legal!) and the Atari 2600 title Journey Escape (using the Stella
emulator). This all, by the way, has nothing to do with the review;
they’re both wonderful programs I’ve been wasting far too much time
with of late.
But if you think about it, had
Escape not been the album that turned Journey into
superstars to the Nth degree, they wouldn’t have had even one game
designed after them. For some reason, this particular album took
all the ground they had gained along their path to success, and
kicked the whole she-bang into overdrive.
Was it justified? We’ll answer that later…
Three songs off
Escape were the key to success: “Don’t Stop Believin’,” a
pleasant pop song with both a positive message and catchy riffs;
“Who’s Crying Now,” a sample of power pop ballads that were about
to become commonplace on FM radio; and “Open Arms,” a second
example of power pop ballad, albeit one that garnered serious
airplay and attention. (I seem to remember that this song was used
in the movie
The Last American Virgin – not once, but twice.)
What is interesting is that, despite the oversaturation that
these tracks have gotten on America’s airwaves over the last 18
years, they still sound fresh – almost as if they had been written
yesterday. (Their timelessness was confirmed by the moderate
success of the reunion album
Trial By Fire.)
But the real beauty of
Escape lies on two tracks that got limited – if any –
attention. “Stone In Love” and “Dead Or Alive” are songs that I
swear I’ve heard before (besides the times I’ve listened to
Escape, of course), but just never reached the pinnacle of
success that the three common tracks did. Why this is the case, I
don’t know – but they sure deserved a shot to hit the top of the
charts.
The problem is that the remaining half of
Escape is pretty much filler – even though it’s
non-threatening. Tracks like “Keep On Runnin’,” “Lay It Down” and
the title track aren’t bad in any sense of the word, but they’re
not on the same level as the previously mentioned hits and
“shoulda-beens”. At times, it does feel like the band is settling
into the pop balladeer mode far too often – it was things like this
that drove me into heavy metal back in the mid-’80s.
So, the question remains: Was Journey’s success justified on
Escape? For half of the album, the answer is yes. But the
other half showed a band that was still a bit uncertain about where
they wanted to take their music – ballads or rockers – and the
indecision ends up hurting the overall picture.