Next

Sound DNA

• Rock
• Prog Rock

• layered
• triumphant
• spacey

About

The reason Steve Perry is curiously absent from this Journey album is that he had yet to join the band. 1977’s <i>Next</i> was Journey’s third studio album. Where its preceding LPs had presented a fusion of jazz and progressive rock similar to later Soft Machine recordings, this one marked a departure. From the opening “Spaceman,” you can hear the band start to hammer out the stadium-friendly rock that would be fleshed out on its next album, <i>Infinity</i>, with the addition of Perry. Although the band was reining in its prog tendencies, Journey still jammed out most of these songs past the four-minute mark, unbending to pop radio’s demand for three-minute hits. As a result, standout songs like “People” and “I Would Find You” play like a less complicated sibling to Rush, with sharper pop hooks that would become more honed with Perry’s subsequent arrival on the microphone.

via Apple Music

Tracklist

Credits