Escape
Journey
Columbia
The seventh studio album by San Francisco rock band Journey tells the story of young men and women struggling with their mundane lives and dreaming of leaving their troubles behind.
Escape signalled quite a departure for the quintet led by guitarist Neal Schon, who went from being a squealing Santana castoff to become the creative foundation of the band. The addition of Jonathan Cain from The Babys was another help, as he added synthesisers to the mix which would become more and more important as the group reached their apex in the 80s.
But it's possible Journey would have been dropped by their label, Columbia Records, if it wasn't for singer Steve Perry. It was his multi-octave voice that made late-70s radio hits out of songs such as Loving, Touching, Squeezing, Anyway You Want It and Wheel in the Sky, setting the stage for what was to become their biggest-selling studio album ever.
Music critics might have derided Escape as an album-oriented rock sellout, but it has become iconic in the 30 years since its release. After the distinctive opening piano chords of Don't Stop Believing, a boy and girl leave on a midnight train in Detroit to follow their dreams. Somewhere amid it all, Schon's guitar gently picks up pace before crash-landing into a smoky room where a singer is determined to hold onto his dreams, even if his surroundings are bleak.
Such strangers flow in and out of this album. On the title track, a young boy refuses to be broken, saying he's 'breaking away tonight. I've got dreams I'm living for'. There's the blue-collar worker running until the morning light, and the heartless globetrotting hitman gunned down by an even more heartless woman on Dead Or Alive.
