Key Takeaways

• Journey’s iconic hits include “Don’t Stop Believin'” and “Open Arms,” showcasing their range from rock anthems to emotional ballads.
• The band has produced numerous deep cuts that resonate with fans, despite not being mainstream hits.
• Journey’s evolution involved significant lineup changes, particularly with the introduction of Steve Perry as a lead vocalist.
• Many of Journey’s lesser-known tracks, like “Kohoutek” and “Faith in the Heartland,” highlight their musical diversity and depth.

Everyone knows Journey’s biggest hits. “Don’t Stop Believin,'” their 18-times platinum 1981 smash, has been all but inescapable. And that’s just one of the group’s half a dozen U.S. Top 10 singles.

They could be as varied as they were ubiquitous. Journey certainly became associated with swooning ballads like “Who’s Crying Now” and “Open Arms.” But they also hit with plenty of straight-ahead rockers, including “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart),” “Only the Young,” and “Be Good to Yourself.”

Even songs that did rise particularly high on the charts became ear-worms that rock fans couldn’t escape. “Lights” failed to break the Top 70. “Wheel in the Sky” only rose about 10 spots higher. “Any Way You Want It” somehow didn’t become a Top 20 hit. Neither did “Send Her My Love.”

What Were Journey’s Best Deep Cuts?

With well over a dozen studio albums, however, singles represent just one chapter in this group’s story – even if it’s the best-known chapter.

Journey also shared scores of treasured songs that never made their way to a disc jockey’s turntable. Big hits may have powered those albums to multi-platinum sales, but what kept listeners in front of their speakers were the moments that connected it all together.

Ready for a deeper dive? We’re taking a look back at the best of those underrated songs with the following list of Top 20 deep cuts by Journey:

No. 20. "Kohoutek"
From: ‘Journey’ (1975)

“Kohoutek” works as a bridge between the sounds that Gregg Rolie and Neal Schon made earlier as part of Santana with those to come from their new band, Journey. In fact, the closing instrumental on Side 1 of the group’s self-titled debut album emerged during Journey’s earliest rehearsals, while a headline-grabbing space rock of the same name was approaching Earth’s orbit at an astonishing 200,000 miles an hour.

Long-time San Francisco music writer Joel Selvin called “Kohoutek” a “crushing instrumental tribute to the ‘comet of the century,'” after Journey’s first-ever concert with Aynsley Dunbar, the drummer who completed Journey’s debut-album lineup, in early February 1974. Schon was very much in his element. “Those are my roots, where I came from — blues fusion, and a bit of jazz,” he said in Journey: Worlds Apart.

Kohoutek’s tail, which was expected to be visible to the naked eye, had been estimated to stretch some 100 million miles. Unfortunately, the comet would be barely seen amid cloudy skies. Journey, which stalled at No. 138, was subject to a similar fate.

No. 19. “Faith in the Heartland”
From: ‘Generations’ (2005)

They’d already split with Steve Perry when Neal Schon remembered Steve Augeri’s early-’90s band Tall Stories. To his ear, they had sounded like Journey — but more up-tempo. Schon tracked down Augeri through a mutual friend. “Coming from a lineage of underachievers, although flattered, I told Joe I thought the idea was crazy and that I was nowhere near in the league of Steve Perry,” Augeri said in Journey: Worlds Apart.

“Faith in the Heartland,” from their second LP together, argued otherwise. Augeri combined with Jonathan Cain and Schon to complete a boilerplate working-stiff theme that was clearly meant to recall “Don’t Stop Believin.'” Yet this song never slips into tribute – or, worse still, parody. Credit goes most of all to Augeri, who strikes a visceral pose on “Faith in the Heartland,” singing every line as if his whole heart is in it.

Unfortunately, Generations went nowhere, and Augeri – citing throat problems – was gone after just two albums with Journey. The group then literally erased Perry’s first replacement, re-recording the Augeri-sung songs “Faith in the Heartland” and “The Place in Your Heart” with Arnel Pineda for 2008’s Revelation.

No. 18. "Anyway"
From: ‘Look Into the Future’ (1976)

Journey was already at a crossroads after just one album. They were selling plenty of tickets, Schon admitted back then, but not many records. That was not exactly what label execs at Columbia were expecting when Journey rose from the ashes of Santana. Founding manager Herbie Herbert leaped into action, lining up a vocal instructor named Bianca Thornton to sharpen their skills.

Songs like “Anyway,” a dark then searching rocker, were better for it. (Not to be confused with “Anyway” from 1994’s For the Love of Strange Medicine, which found Steve Perry directly addressing his estrangement from Journey.) This is perhaps Rolie’s most desirous vocal performance, but it was also a bit of cheat.

Perfectly titled, Look Into the Future was meant to illustrate how Journey could retain a progressive feel even as they moved toward a new song-focused industry standard. Instead, Journey tried to get there with clever sequencing. Side 1 was home to slightly more radio-friendly fare like “Anyway” (and particularly “On a Saturday Nite”) while much longer tracks found a place on Side 2.

No. 17. “Lovin’ You Is Easy”
From: ‘Evolution’ (1979)

Evolution was also aptly named as Journey set out to refine what worked on their previous album. Legendary producer Roy Thomas Baker leaned more heavily into the honeyed vocal blend created when Steve Perry joined for 1978’s Infinity – notably on the singalong No. 16 smash “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’.” But they were clearly still a band in transition. “Lovin’ You Is Easy” makes the point.

The Side 2 opener on Evolution starts as another cookie-cutter ’70s-era Journey song, though with a notable new propulsion from Aynsley Dunbar replacement Steve Smith. Then Steve Perry gets to the ear-worm title lyric – and everything changes. “Lovin’ You Is Easy” ends up pointing to where Journey was headed.

Well, eventually. Evolution was their highest-debuting LP ever – but only got to No. 50. It had taken eight tries for Journey to finally reach the Top 20 on the singles chart with “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’.” But then neither “Just the Same Way” (with Gregg Rolie sharing vocals) nor “Too Late” caught a whiff of the Top 40.

No. 16. "We Will Meet Again"
From: ‘Arrival’ (2001)

Journey was well aware of the mountainous challenges ahead at the turn of the millennium as they entered New York City’s Avatar Studios without Steve Perry. Jonathan Cain openly wondered if going forward was even possible. They could; Journey just needed a new Steve. They began with a belated return to the road with a different singer who sounded enough like Perry to credibly recreate the old songs.

After more than 120 shows in 1998-99, Steve Augeri was finally set to make his first proper studio album with the group. Tracks like “All the Way,” which almost broke into the Top 20 on Billboard’s adult-contemporary chart showed that this new edition could uphold Journey’s ballad brand. Then there was “We Will Meet Again,” with an inventively layered rhythm from Deen Castronovo that creates a distinct character among Journey’s soaring anthems.

It all sets the stage for a moment of controlled fury from Augeri that’s unlike anything from an earlier era. “We Will Meet Again” then builds toward a sweeping vista reminiscent of Journey’s Roy Thomas Baker-helmed sides like “Winds of March” and “Opened the Door,” a welcome development indeed. And as with those two 1978 tracks, “We Will Meet Again” serves as an emotionally resonant side-closing moment.