Though primarily a purveyor of soft rock hits, in 1982 Kenny Loggins “manned up” with Don’t Fight It. This muscular arena rock duet with Journey’s Steve Perry was a massive hit, peaking at #4 on the Mainstream Rock chart and #17 on the Pop Singles chart. The song was featured on Loggins’ 1982 album High Adventure, the cover of which has Loggins doing his best Indiana Jones impersonation. [Read the rest of this entry...]
Stryken was a band that started out as Stryker, but changed their name to try to avoid comparisons to Stryper, although both bands were “Christian” rock. Here’s a MySpace page on the band with more information. With an album cover like 1987′s “First Strike” (why not “First Stryke”?), it appears that the band had more in common with Stryper than a name. Apparently the “AOG” on the third dude’s chestplate thing stands for “Armor of God”, which is what they call what they are wearing. This line of armor includes miniskirts (for the two middle guys) and mascara as well.
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The band that was known as Jefferson Starship throughout the 1970s and early 80s evolved out of Jefferson Airplane, the San Francisco-based psychedelic rock unit that formed in 1965. Jefferson Airplane is best known for “Somebody to Love” and the “Alice in Wonderland”-themed “White Rabbit”.
Tensions among band members and side projects such as offshoot band Hot Tuna led to Airplane members Grace Slick and Paul Kantner to put out solo albums and collaborate on other material. The Slick/Kanter group pulled in Marty Balin and others from Airplane to become Jefferson Starship, and subsequently attained much higher commercial heights than the original Jefferson Airplane. The group, characterized by a more AOR-oriented sound than Airplane, had a string of four straight top ten albums from 1974-1978, including “Red Octopus”, which hit #1. [Read the rest of this entry...]
Journey is INTENSE!
It’s a fact that most 80s videos look dated and don’t hold up well, but Journey’s “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” takes it to a new level. Taken from their 1983 album “Frontiers”, the song is classic Journey, driven by Jonathan Cain’s keyboards and Neal Schon’s guitar. The song was a big hit, hitting #1 on the Mainstream Rock chart, and #8 on the Pop Singles chart. The video however, is as cheesy as they come, complete with the band members trying too hard to look serious and intense, popped collars, bad editing and “air keyboards” by Jonathan Cain. [Read the rest of this entry...]
