Steve Perry — “Strung Out”

Entered Top 40:  October 27, 1984
 1 week 
Peaked at: 40

Steve Perry’s hiring in 1977 transformed Journey from a jazzy-prog outfit into slick arena rockers and power-balladeers. It paid off, as they sold tons of records and concert tickets, and had not one, but two video games; maybe the true ’80s sign that you had arrived. After the 1984 Frontiers tour, Perry cut his first solo record Street Talk, yielding the probably-familiar “Oh Sherrie” (#3). The followup, “She’s Mine,” is less-remembered, but did hit #21. After two ballads, the tempo change of “Strung Out” was apparently not what Steve Perry fans were looking for in a third single, as it stalled here.

In the “Strung Out” video, Perry’s sticking with his persona of a lunchpail guy who just happens to also be a rock star; at the very end the video turns out to be a prequel to the “Oh Sherrie” video, as Perry meets the pompous director from the earlier video.

Perry’s fourth solo single went back to the ballads, and peaked at #18. “Foolish Heart” is a single-take performance video: slow zoom for 2 minutes, medium shot for a minute; slow zoom out for the final minute. When Perry returned to Journey in 1986, the group stopped issuing videos for their Raised on Radio LP, despite MTV being at the height of its influence, instead shooting a tour documentary. This ended up being a bit of a miscalculation, as Raised on Radio “only” went double-platinum. Journey went on a 10-year hiatus after that, and recorded just one more album with Perry in 1996. Perry picked up his solo carer again in 2018; most recently he showed up on Dolly Parton’s Rockstar album, singing “Open Arms” with her. There’s a level of goodwill I’ll extend to Dolly most all the time, but I don’t know about this one.