Journey Albums Ranked Worst to Best

Journey has been through their share of incarnations over the past five decades – some of them respected but low-selling, some of them bestsellers who were critically ignored. To help guide you through those periods, we’re counting down all of their studio albums from worst to best.

Through it all, guitarist and co-founder Neal Schon, the only member to have appeared on every Journey album, has soldiered on. He started Journey in the mid-’70s as a fusion-focused group alongside fellow Santana product Gregg Rolie, but it was only after Steve Perry joined that they began building a platinum-selling legacy. Then, Jonathan Cain came over from the Babys to replace Rolie on keyboards, and his pop smarts and composition skills helped launch Journey into superstar status in the early ’80s.

But by the end of the decade, Perry, who established a parallel solo career with 1984’s Street Talk, began an on-again, off-again relationship with the band – much to the chagrin of all the new fans Journey had made in the meantime. After their final late ’90s split, Schon and Cain went through two other frontmen before settling on current singer Arnel Pineda. He has since helped Journey rebuild its commercial fortunes, keeping the band as a reliable draw on the road while leading them to two Top 15 releases along the way. But which one tops them all? See our ranking of Journey’s albums below.

See Neal Schon Among Rock’s Forgotten Supergroups