INFINITY

This is one of my most hated album ever, because it's representative of the music industry taking over the deciding reins of RnR and turning it into a money machine, and in a few months will transform a genuine rock group into a corporate rock group - seriously Jouney has been labelled that, and by specialist music journalist at that, themselves part of that industry. Soooo CBS, not happy with commercial returns proposed a hideous deal: lose their gold-knitted recording deal or accept this semi- crooner Steve Perry as their frontmen and major songwriting partner.

The band started to change and this album was the first of a series of idiotic Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am hood artworks with the infinity sign associated, which was a little laughable and so in line with the kitsch tastes of the late 70's. And right away, one can see that Perry chose the younger (and probably more malleable) Schon as his privileged writing partner (Rollie being the ex-lead singer was less probable too), even if his credit don't appear on three tracks, probably leftovers from their just-gone-by days

No less than three top hits came out of this album, all crafted as radio-friendly songs, including the soppy opening ballad Lights, the un-welcomed Anytime (not written by Perry, but sung by him) and the ugly Wheels in The Sky, strangely also not written by Perry, which goes to show that his voice was indeed the only missing ingredient for the group to go from rags to riches. CBS knew what they were doing, quite unfortunately for the RnR spirit.

Among the least loathsome tracks are the hard rocker La Do Da and Winds Of March, which allows one last glimpse of the old Journey in the few great interplay moments ... and that's about it!!To think that there were still three early 70's heroes taking part in this kind of venture is rather unsettling, but they were probably caught financially with their pants down and not necessarily with groupies around, so they were forced or coerced into this.

What really hurts is that within months, Journey was filling stadiums and at the forefront of Stadium, rock, adult-oriented rock, corporate rock and rolling in the bucks from a numb-skulled mainstream crowd only willing to part with their cash for tedious garbage like this. Sooo impressve that Mick Jagger came in for a crash-course to see how it was all done. Soon the heads would start Rolling (Rollie would be second ;o)p) with Dunbar's groupies unsettling the new master's style. No matter how well played or professionally produced (Celine Dion's album are exactly that as well), Infinity is exactly the album to be shat upon. If you're in an anti-capitalist flag-burning parade, bring along your sister copy of this hideous album and throw it in the fire for extra fuel... it should provide a bonfire and save some human ears from being numb-skulled by idiocy.