The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. CIV

Alright kids, let's get this Christmas party started with another round of Yuletide disappointment. . . 

Album Title:  The Season

Album Artist:  Steve Perry

This one I ended up buying off Amazon a few months ago, as it was on sale for a ridiculous $6 ('cause it was in the off months and that's really the best time to buy Holiday Vinyl) and I figured 'screw it, Journey's okay. . . I guess.'  One of those 'guilty pleasure' bands, falls under the category of So Bad, It's Good, right alongside Meatloaf and Motley Crue.  We all have guilty pleasure bands.

I should say, right out of the gate, that Steve Perry's nasally, high-pitched singing is not my cup of tea.  I've never liked him.  I've tolerated Journey all of these years because of the guitar work and catchiness of the songwriting, not his vocal prowess.  That's almost laughable.

You wanna know what's not laughable?  This album.

The Season isn't a rocking album by any means - it's a crooning album, the kind you'd expect to hear from the likes of Mel Torme or Michael Buble.  What's the big deal, you say?  Well, in this case, all you're left with is the absolute worst part about Journey:  Steve Perry's singing.  While not one my favorite singers (by a long shot), I could stomach him back in the '70s because he had that kicked-in-the-nuts, banshee-wailing style of singing that went hand-in-hand with the over-the-top guitar work (see: 'Wheel in the Sky.')  

Here we don't have that.  Here, we have high-pitched, old man singing, that never - not once - matches up with the music he's singing over.  His voice is a mere shadow of what it used to be, and you can almost feel the old man wrinkles in his vocal cords.  Instead of wrestling those once-easy high notes to the ground and making them his bitch, Perry shies away from them like a skittish deer.  He backs off so much that his singing feels weak and lame.  You know, like an injured deer.  Or the kind that get those warts all over their face 'cause of that one disease deer get.  I'm not sure what it's called, but you should look it up - it's terrifying.

This album feels hollow and empty, with a plastic, corporate sheen glazed over the entire thing.  The musicians performing on this are professionals, the mix is fine, but the arrangements are so run-of-the-mill that they could be the backing music for any washed up vocalist you could think of.  It's like they recorded the whole album in advance, then drew Steve Perry's name out of hat to fill in the blanks and call it a done deal.  The whole damn thing comes across as a frickin' cash grab.

At a measly eight songs in length, this is a really, really short album (mercifully.)  Four tracks on each side, and every, last one of them a slow, boring affair.  The fact they packaged this as a gatefold album with multiple inserts - all for eight songs - seems like overkill.  For the die-hard Steve Perry fan, this release is probably a cornerstone of their Holiday collection.  For the rest of us, we're left holding the shit-end of a Yuletide stick.

So, in summary, The Season features a nasally, washed up rock star crooning over typical, slow jazz arrangements that sound like everything else you've heard before - but done better - from countless other singers.  I was hoping for 'Dont Stop Believing' in Christmas form, but instead was left with Steve Perry taking a break from his County Fair circuit to try and remind us all of his relevancy.

Nice try, Steve.

VERDICT:  3/10 - Seriously? (Another Holiday disappointment from a washed up has-been.  I'm keeping this for the time being, if only to attempt selling this at a higher price in a couple years once the value goes up.  I'm giving him a pity point or two because nothing here is comically awful, and I could still walk away from this shit-show making $10 someday.)

- SHELVED-

- Brian