SFGate.com has an article about the 25th anniversary of Journey’s ESC4P3 (early promoters of leet speak?).

Fantastic Journey

What do critics know? The people have spoken, and the verdict is the same as it was 25 years ago: Journey so rocks! A quarter-century after “ESC4P3” — “Escape” to the straights — took over the airwaves, it’s high time to reconsider just who made the best music ever to come out of the Bay Area.

There have been hundreds of albums over the past few decades that were hated on by critics, only to sell millions of copies. That sentence pretty much describes the entire careers of Meat Loaf, Kansas and Jimmy Buffett.

And yet, what if there was a band, or even a single album, that was falsely persecuted — the musical version of a Death Row inmate who didn’t commit the crime? What if every 1980s critic was completely wrong about that album’s alleged failings, a fact that becomes instantly apparent just by playing it again?

It’s time to re-evaluate Journey’s “Escape,” or “ESC4P3” for those who prefer the prog-rock spelling of the era… [SFGate.com] [via waxy links]

I can proudly say I never owned a copy of the album and have no real thoughts on it. But I do remember the popularity of a number of the tracks on it. Still it’s an interesting read about a much abused album.