After three albums, Journey was at a crossroads. They had received a certain level of professional acclaim, but stardom seemed to elude them. They needed to make decisions about their future, and quickly.
First step: bring in a stronger presence as lead singer. After a failed experiment with Robert Fleischmann, they brought in Steve Perry. Second, they enlisted the production expertise of Roy Thomas Baker, best known for his work with Queen.
Take these ingredients, and add to the mix solid songwriting, and you have Infinity, Journey’s fourth studio effort, and the first album that truly showed the superstar power they had—to a point.
From the opening notes of “Lights,” it’s fairly obvious that, to use the hackneyed phrase, there was a new sheriff in town. With no disrespect meant towards Gregg Rolie, Perry’s vocals ring out far stronger and fit the material much better. Baker’s layering of the harmony vocals is the icing on the cake, and enriches the sound all the more.
Rolie still gets his time in front of the mic—as a co-lead on “Feeling That Way” and as the lead singer for “Anytime,” a one-two punch that keeps the juggernaut rolling. Granted, these songs have become standard bills of fare on classic rock radio, but one can imagine even in 1978 that hearing these for the first time made people sit up and take considerable notice. The one remaining radio hit, “Wheel In The Sky,” seals that deal.
Where Infinity stumbles is in two places. First is lyrical development, which sounds in places as if they didn’t have time to complete all the words for Perry to sing. When you’re reduced to a number of “la di da” phrases in the bridge of “Lights,” that’s an immediate cause for alarm. Similarly, naming a song “La Do Da”? Feels kinda lazy, methinks.
The other concern is that many of the remaining tracks—you know, the ones that commercial radio hasn’t beaten to death—aren’t nearly as strong (though they’re a marked improvement over what comprised their previous album Next). As much as I’d like to get behind the pre-“Faithfully” road-weary song “Patiently,” or tap my foot in pleasure to songs like “Can Do” and “Winds Of March,” they just don’t live up to the promise and potential that “Feeling That Way” or “Wheel In The Sky” clearly had.
Still, Infinity is a step in the right direction for Journey, and even with the weaker selections, spoke of greater things to come for the band.