Why Stop Believin’?
Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” is one of the most ubiquitous of popular songs, even 30 years after its release. Steve Perry is a vocal dynamo; its lyrics and grandeur are the essence of triumph.
On the other side of the coin, it’s a group-singalong cliché that an unlucky few would be glad to see put to rest for awhile. Working in karaoke bars across the United States, they hear it on a near-nightly basis — not to mention all the times it shows up on TV, at the grocery store and elsewhere. Each time its opening piano chords flow from the speakers, they sigh to themselves, “There goes another 5 minutes of my life that I can’t have back.”
How much time has been lost to this song, all put together? How many compounded hours, days, years(?) have been stripped from so many lives by this melodic monster of multi-tracked vocal mastery? This blog was established on Sunday, May 15th, 2011, as one karaoke jockey’s attempt to find out.
