"In their cool efficiency and pop concision, Journey were a lot closer to the Ramones than they were to Led Zeppelin."

In what way is "cool efficiency and pop concision" related to rock music? This "defense" of Journey, by focusing on their musical talents, completely missed the point. No one hates Journey because they're not good musicians; it's precisely because they are paragons of "cool efficiency" in their purveyance of a style which is to rock as "smooth jazz" is to jazz. It's a kind of music in which all the rough edges have been smoothed out to the point where all that's left is the stuff that doesn't matter, the fluff at the bottom of the bowl.

in terms of actual rock music, the Ramones are a lot closer to Led Zeppelin than they are to Journey.

While I didn't really care for Frontiers or anything after, my junior high purchase of Escape was to this day some of the best money I've ever spent. I still think these guys are brilliant. I often say that Schon is second only to David Gilmour as a composer of brilliantly melodic guitar solos.

It seems to me that a large part of the punk aesthetic is anti-melody ("nevermind" that Nirvana is endlessly hooky and melodic, or Green Day for that matter), and if melodies aren't your bag then obviously Journey isn't for you. Even Steve Smith's drumming is melodic forchrissake!

Thanks for sticking up for them, David

David Please. I shouldn't have to say that there was more to the punk movement than the length of the songs and musical 'efficiency'...but there was. A lot more.

Don't get me wrong; there is a soft spot in my heart for Journey and the other cheese rock of the 70s, but saying that they weren't that different from the punk movement is like saying that the Czar and the Bolshieviks disagreed about communal property, but had more in common with each other than they did with a brick.

Though how cool would it have been, in your alternate reality, if the Clash or the Pistols had had a video game like Journey did?

...until Pery came on board. I remember several nights at Chicago's Aragon Ballroom as a teen grooving to Schon, Gregg Rolie and Aynsley Dunbar laying down thick, heavy jams. They were a somewhat catchier prog alternative without the pretension that marred so much of the genre.

Then one night, we ventured back to the Aragon. Some pencil-necked guy is now out front. The jams are gone, the magic has vanished, and so did we.

The poster boys for Corporate Rock crap are like the Beatles, Ramones, and Nirvana? How did you get this job? How do you keep it? Btw, nice job kicking the stuffing out of all those straw men you set up. Journey didn't suck because they were well produced, and they didn't suck because of their virtuosity (hell, some of them were members of one of the best incarnations of Santana), and I have never heard anyone complain about how many minutes their songs lasted (unless you count the screams of pain from anyone with any taste when that treacle gets played), as that was a trademark of Prog Rock, not Corporate Rock. We all have our guilty pleasures, but you've made the mistake of not only trying to defend yours, but to call out those who don't share in your particular mental disorder.

Btw, are you the same guy who didn't know who Dickey Betts was a couple of years back?

Well, this is explains why so many times I check out recommended music here and up scratching my head, wondering "What's so great about that?"

Everyone's musical tastes differ, but to consistently rip the Beatles and promote music such as Journey proves that some people just live in different musical worlds. The Beatles were craftsman in the best sense of the word, in their arrangements there is not one unnecessary note, everything works for the benefit of the paticular song. It's the musical equivalent of Shakespeare's writing. With Journey, the undeniably impressive technique is used to cover up the lack of originality in the songs themselves, it's all bombast designed to puff up what is at its core material that is musically ordinary and lyrically pedestrian.

At least, that's the way it has always seemed to me, and the fact that we seem to hear the same music so differently is, I think, why I find so little in common between my own tastes and Salon's recommendations.

"Escape" was the breakthrough album? Perhaps our author is a lad of more tender years than I, but c'mon: "Infinity" was Journey's breakthrough.

Otherwise, I have to agree with the comment regarding the difference between disliking something as a matter of personal taste, and disliking something because it objetively "sucks."

A mistake to compare Journey to The Beatles? The Ramones? Probably, since such a comparison is bound to piss off the large group of people who worship -- quite literally -- at those bands' respective altars. So you have to find a comparison something short of a band that is deified by so many. May I suggest: Cheap Trick? Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers? The Cars? All acts that had some fine moments, generally not universally considered "sucky" and yet still capable of some pretty lame stuff on occasion.

Ah, the beauty of rock comparison and criticism.

I saw Journey once, in 1978.

The played after Peter Tosh and before the Rolling Stones at Soldier Field.

Trust me, in that context, they sucked.

I loved Neil Schon's playing when I saw him play w/ Santana. With Journey, not so much.

Context is everything.

And I suppose that Foreigner was really as great as the Rolling Stones.

Journey goes down in the hall of fames as one of the worst bands ever just for their video games (the simple fact taht someone thought it was a good idea...), don't even get me started on their music...

Sterile, over-produced, cheesy, and annoying can easily be substituted to describe this dated artifact of 80's rock. When those opening bars started on "Don't Stop Believing" on the final episode of the Sopranos it elicited an immdediate winch and a knee-jerk "Oh, Christ not Journey", flew out of my mouth. But I have to admit it would definately be a Tony pick-"Classic Rock" was always spewing forth on his stereo and it just reeked of a tongue-in cheek way to bid farewell to the Sopranos as the final nerve-racking moments of the show played out-not wanting to say good-bye but sure as hell wanting that song to stop.

Sure they are good musicians but what good is great technique if its playing bad material. And to compare them to punk rock just because they changed their neverending jam sessions to shorter poppier material is a major gaff in logic. The Ramones revolutionized music, Journey just goose-stepped behind Styx, Foreigner. Kansas. and REO to produce faceless corporate schlock and really bad videos.