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?

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

"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.

"Don't Stop Believing" was the theme of my Senior Ball back in '83, one of the happiest times of my life. "When the Lights Go Down In the City" is the best song ever written about San Francisco save the one and only "San Francisco Open Your Golden Gates!" (now "We Built This City" - that's pure cheese). I tear up every time I hear that song because I was living on Green Street and Laguna (lower Pacific Heights) on October 17th, 1989 at 5:04pm. Later on, a bunch of people were on our apartment roof, looking out at the eerily dark city when someone, somewhere started playing "When the Lights.." on a horn (trumpet? fugle?? I'm not sure). There were other people on the roofs of their buildings in our neighborhood, and, little by little, they and we all started singing along with the horn. It was incredible, a moment I'll remember until the day I die. So there's the nostalgia.

As for Perry's voice, well, what can I say? It could be by turns overpowering and as gentle as a windchime. He was one of the very few who were allowed a brief solo moment during "We Are the World", and the only performer who made a bigger (positive) impression was Ray Charles. The guy was one of the greats, whether anyone wants to believe it or not. And the reason he had to "beg" to get people to sing along to "When the Lights..." at Graham's memorial (I was there too) was because of the asshole poseurs who were booing him. Yeah, that turned my stomach too, but for entirely different reasons.

It's not Journey that arouses my ire, per se, so much as the highly-irritating Steve Perry. In much the same way that REO Speedwagon is not particularly irritating until Kevin Cronin opens his mouth, or Styx is less egregious without Tommy Shaw's antics.

Some people grate; Perry is one such person. When his vocals are ladled on top of the 80s-era synths, the overly-glossy production, and everything else, it's simply too much. In much the same way that Bush's voice causes me to reach for the volume knob during news stories, Perry's voice causes me to fumble for the preset buttons.

They were accomplished musicians. Neil Schoen was a truly great guitarist underneath it all. Perry's voice was amazing, if somewhat generic (Journey was able to replace Steve Perry with someone who sounded even more like Steve Perry in short order) but he was completely unlikable, kind of like that guy from Styx that does the Liberace-type act in Vegas now. But above all, listening to that particular song makes me remember hearing it for the first time and thinking that it was (if you ignored the actual lyrics, just listened to the sounds they were making) impossibly perfect. And there is value in that. A lot of value.

And Tony sure as hell would have picked that song off the jukebox. For white people in North Jersey that kind of shit is soul music. It's uplifting. It defines optimism. It doesn't make you think too hard. It's catchy. It's everything pop should be.

But what I take objection to is mentioning Journey and the Ramones in the same sentence. No, the same paragraph. Hell, they shouldn't be mentioned on the same internet. Journey took pop and added a level of talent and polish that were rarely seen. The Ramones created perfection, in the sense that adding or removing a single thing, one note, one riff, one word, would have destroyed the song. The Ramones were perfect in the same way that great white sharks are perfect. Journey, by comparison, was just a bigger, prettier goldfish.

A very valiant defense. Unfortyunately, you're defending the undefendable. Journey sucks. Beliedve me, I love as much cheesy, 80's schlock as the next guy. Hell, if I'm in the car flipping through stations, i may even sing along to a Journey song. But it's more out of a nostalgia for a time when me and my brothers would watch their god awful videos and crack up then because they're a good band. I would never pay for one of their albums, and if I never heard another Journey song, I wouldn't be any worse off for it. Maybe that's what happened at the end of the episode. Tony was so sick of hearing that song that he shot himself.