Journey are still one of the best rock bands I had ever heard, and they still continue to make good music to this day. Raised on Radio was the band’s 9th album, released in 1986, and this was a point in which lead vocalist Steve Perry took nearly-full control of the band, and he tried to make the band sound as commercial as they did on their 1981 album Escape, which was a big breakthrough for the band. Guitarist Neal Schon and keyboardist Jonathan Cain were still in the band, but bassist Ross Valory and drummer Steve Smith were both fired (but Smith did play drums on three of the album’s tracks), being replaced by session musicians Randy Jackson, Bob Glaub, and Larrie Londin (Keep in mind that there were a TON of session musicians on this album, but Steve Lukather wasn’t one of them!). Jackson would later rise to more popularity when he became one of the judges for American Idol. I bought this album on CD from Thrifty Joe’s, and it was the original 1986 CD pressing.
This album is practically a straight-up pop rock album which doesn’t sacrifice Journey’s typical arena rock sound. Even though Journey first formed as a progressive rock band, Journey had experimented with some progressive styles on later albums such as 1980’s Departure and 1983’s Frontiers, but Raised on Radio isn’t one of them, so if you’re into the Journey that gets progressive at times, this album isn’t for you.
This album was considered by many Journey fans to be a Steve Perry solo album in all but name; most of what was heard matched the keyboard-heavy pop styles of Street Talk, his debut solo album that was released two years prior to Raised on Radio. It seems that in this stage, Steve wanted to meld his style of keyboard-heavy pop rock with the commercial hard rock of 1981’s Escape album, and he did it successfully. This album even experiments with genres like typical 80’s pop (“Positive Touch”, “It Could’ve Been You”), new wave (“Susanne”), post-disco in the Michael Jackson vein (“Once You Love Somebody”), and really grandiose synthpop (“Happy to Give”). The style of hard rock heard on Escape is found on the tracks “Be Good to Yourself” and the title track. If you wish to dig into some “progressive” Journey on this album, it’s best that you get a taste of the atmospheric soft rock ditty that is “The Eyes of a Woman”. That particular track had Neal Schon experimenting with a guitar synthesizer (Maybe this was the MIDI-controlled guitar synth he used during the Raised on Radio tour?) and a Kurzweil keyboard synth, a keyboard which was famously used by Pink Floyd back when David Gilmour led the band. This track also incorporated some sound effects, provided by Megan Clearmountain.
Part of the awesome cover illustration was done by Prairie Prince, who became known as both the founder of the Tubes and as Journey’s very first drummer. That was, before Aynsley Dunbar replaced him.
The Crazy Mind of Tré Roland 