Top 35 Videos by Journey, Together and Apart

Journey managed to release one of the most talked-about clips in MTV history during their brief time making videos. As you'll see below in our ranking of every Journey music video, however, there were plenty of other high and low points beyond the ubiquitous "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)."

Because of their relatively small video catalog, we've expanded the rankings to include closely related clips from Steve Perry, Bad English (which included three members of Journey's current lineup), Gregg Rolie and Neal Schon. That serves to provide a broader overview of their career arc from the '70s through the '20s without drifting too far afield thematically.

Some feature composed storylines while others lean on lip-synced performances. Along the way, you'll find knights and motorcyclists, big hair and even bigger hooks, backstage shenanigans and long-gone girlfriends, cartoon beetles and (yes) air-keyboards.

READ MORE: Ranking All 52 Journey Songs From the '80s

Taken together with a multi-platinum discography, the Top 35 Videos by Journey complete a winding narrative from obscure jam band to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Additional commentary for the entries is excerpted from the new Amazon best-selling Journey biography, Journey: Worlds Apart.
No. 35. Journey, "After the Fall"
From: Frontiers (1983)

By the time Journey returned for 1986's Raised on Radio, they had sworn off scripted videos. This clip makes the case for that decision, reeling off a sort of greatest hits of bad choices. A set resembling an empty builder-grade apartment was lit through the blinds. There's awkward lip-syncing, awkward dancing, even awkward standing – and, sigh, band members actually falling. Even Journey looks bored, at one point reaching for a caffeine boost of coffee while singing the chorus.

No. 34. Journey, "City of Hope"
From: Eclipse (2011)

Smart use of video from Arnel Pineda's homeland for one of this album's better songs, but it's all undercut by a series of remarkably cheap-looking band shots.

No. 33. Journey, "Chain Reaction"
From: Frontiers (1983)

For some reason, this era saw a lot of singing into women's ears. (More on that later.) This time, they sing into a mannequin's ear! Seriously, though, that tussle between Steve Perry and Neal Schon looked a little too real. Their next project together wouldn't arrive for three years.

No. 32. Gregg Rolie, "Young Love"
From: Gregg Rolie (1985)

Videos like this were so common as to be anodyne in the '80s. That's not the problem. It's that Columbia Records somehow picked "Young Love" over "I Wanna Go Back," the Gregg Rolie deep cut that would become a Top 15 hit for Eddie Money just one year later.

No. 31. Schon and Hammer, "No More Lies"
From: Here to Stay (1982)

Neal Schon sings some stuff to a woman, then he and Jan Hammer get trapped in a twine box? Hey, it was the '80s.

No. 30. Bad English, "Love is a 4 Letter Word"
From: Bad English (1989)

A rudimentary lip-sync video is enlivened by an actual crowd at an actual show in Atlanta.

No. 29. Neal Schon, "What You Want"
From: So U (2014)

For some reason, the deeply talented Deen Castronovo shared singing duties on So U with Marco Mendoza and leader Neal Schon, as Schon continued an occasional flirtation with vocals that went back to Journey's Next in 1977. History tells us, however, that Columbia Records demanded that Journey hire a new singer for the LP which followed.

No. 28. Journey, "Wheel in the Sky"
From: Infinity (1978)

An otherwise nondescript performance video is paired with the single. Best part: Neal Schon's seriously kick-ass kimono.

No. 27. Bad English, "Straight to Your Heart"
From: Backlash (1991)

Arguably Bad English's best single arrived on their well-named second album: The whole AOR sound that its members from Journey and the Babys had created was about to be subsumed by the tidal wave of grunge.

No. 26. Journey, "Send Her My Love"
From: Frontiers (1983)

As with "Wheel in the Sky," a performance video is paired with the single – only this time with some utterly enraptured gazes from the audience.

No. 25. Journey, "Why Can't This Night Go On Forever"
From: Raised on Radio (1986)

"Why Can't This Night Go On Forever" featured an appropriately wistful clip-file video from a band that was grinding to another sudden halt.

No. 24. Journey, "Lights"
From: Infinity (1978)

Unlikely controversy surrounded this clip, and not because of the dizzying visual effects during the choruses. "I went to some Billboard conference, and [founding manager] Herbie Herbert was there," Journey video producer Paul Flattery told me. "He came up to me and he was blasting me for the Journey video. His big complaint involved Aynsley Dunbar, the drummer. His stomach stuck out in one of the shots. They were lined up, in kind of a profile thing. It was like, 'He complains to me about this every day.'"

No. 23. Neal Schon, "The Calling"
From: The Calling (2012)

You get a sense that Schon maybe loves motorcycles? What actually made this session so great: Steve Smith. Initial work on a few tracks eventually became an album-length collaboration, then The Calling – Schon's best solo album to date – precipitated a completely unexpected return to Journey.

No. 22. Journey, "Any Way You Want It"
From: Departure (1980)

An otherwise nondescript performance video is bookended with jukebox scenes that neatly presuppose the placement of "Don't Stop Believin'" in the finale of The Sopranos.

No. 21. Steve Perry, "Missing You"
From: For the Love of Strange Medicine (1994)

Typical of its time, this clip from Perry's long-awaited sophomore solo LP is more texture than actual context.

No. 20. Bad English, "Forget Me Not"
From: Bad English (1989)

This band included three former members of the Babys, the doomed opening act that provided a tour-long audition for future cornerstone Jonathan Cain. Bad English would suffer a similar fate, hinted at (once again) by the way John Waite and Neal Schon push each other around in this clip for their failed debut single.

No. 19. Journey, "Just the Same Way"
From: Evolution (1979)

OK, not much happens. But there was a cool juxtaposition of light and darkness when Rolie shared vocals early in Perry's tenure. Unfortunately, it was an all-too-brief moment in time. Media attention was soon focused squarely on the newcomer, and Rolie exited in 1980. "I don't think Perry really liked me singing. 'I'm the singer,'" Rolie told me. "Well, OK. But my answer to that is, you know, the Beatles did great with four singers. Four, right? Not one." In the end, Rolie felt "there was a design to all of that: 'You've got to have a frontman now,' and it was so they've got something to write about, and focus on. Now hopefully the frontman in any band is going to rally behind the guys behind them that helped them be the frontman. Bands are bands and they've got to live like that — and that's hard to do, especially when the press gets involved."

No. 18. Gregg Rolie, "The Hands of Time"
From: Gringo (1987)

You may assume that Rolie couldn't pull off the sleek plasticine sound of the '80s, since his departure coincided with Journey's shift in that direction. "The Hands of Time" proves otherwise.

No. 17. Bad English, "Price of Love"
From: Bad English (1989)

They whiffed on a rocker, then hit with a Diane Warren power ballad. So guess what their next single sounded like? A somehow forgotten No. 5 hit.

No. 16. Neal Schon, "Love Finds a Way"
From: So U (2014)

Schon's best solo single agan showcases Castronovo and Mendoza, both of whom participated in offshoot bands and the main Journey lineup. Castronovo's ability to pull off Perry-type vocals while manning the drums is a remarkable thing to watch. A friend of Rolie's son memorably walked up to Castronovo after a performance and "and he goes, 'I'm convinced that you're only half human' — because he can do that," Rolie told me, with a laugh. "I couldn’t believe that he was singing the way he was singing and playing these complex things. It's amazing to me. He thinks 'What? Can't everybody do that?' 'No, no, not at all!'"

No. 15. Journey, "When You Love a Woman"
From: Trial By Fire (1996)

A suitably staid clip for a very staid song.

No. 14. Journey, "I'll Be Alright Without You"
From: Raised on Radio (1986)

Points given for the new accapella ending. Points taken away for Randy Jackson's polka-dotted bass.

No. 13. Steve Perry, "No More Cryin'"
From: Traces (2018)

Notable for the unwelcome absence of organist Booker T. Jones. The Stax legend connected Traces with Perry's love of R&B, while girding it all with mirthful soul. Keyboardist Dallas Kruse mimes the part.

No. 12. Bad English, "When I See You Smile"
From: Bad English (1989)

In which three past or future members of Journey are shown up by John Waite's gloriously hair-sprayed visage.

No. 11. Journey, "Feeling That Way"
From: Infinity (1978)

Love the Budweiser on Gregg Rolie's keyboard. The only disappointment was learning that he wasn't simply boozing it up. The beer company was a Journey tour sponsor.

No. 10. Steve Perry, "Most of All"
From: Traces (2018)

Notable for its welcome showcase of Thom Flowers, who turns in a delicately involving guitar solo after helping shepherd Perry's long-awaited comeback as co-producer of Traces. "Most of All," an emotional goodbye to Perry's late girlfriend Kellie Nash, was one of its triumphs.

No. 9. Gregg Rolie, "What About Love"
From: Sonic Ranch (2019)

Rolie was inspired by Ringo Starr's message of peace and love as a member of the longest-tenured lineup of the All-Starr Band, and "What About Love" is the result. Rolie then enlisted his son Sean Rolie to help with a music video. Its jittery blend of candid backstage footage, performance clips from the Journey Through Time offshoot band, and open-road imagery served as a canny update of Rolie's image for a new era.

No. 8. Steve Perry, "You Better Wait"
From: For the Love of Strange Medicine (1994)

It's cool that he carried the patented tuxedo-jacket look into his solo career, but a run-down shack out in the desert clearly wasn't the most hospitable setting. Perry loses the shirt.

No. 7. Steve Perry, "Foolish Heart"
From: Street Talk (1984)

Deceptively difficult to film, this concept came courtesy of Journey video producer Paul Flattery's director of photography. But slowly zooming in and out on Steve Perry from the balcony of this intimate theater proved to be outrageously expensive. "You didn't have a crane that could have the camera actually in the balcony and below the parapet, and then come up and go all the way down," Flattery told me. "So, the solution was to build a fake balcony, which you could then strike as soon as the camera was clear of it. Then you could get everything and everybody out of the way by the time you got down to the stage and the camera turned around. For something that looks so simple, that was a lot of hard work."

No. 6. Journey, "The Way We Used to Be"
From: Freedom (2022)

They made the best of pandemic-era restrictions with a fizzy animated video that finds Neal Schon suddenly transforming into Journey's familiar scarab.

No. 5. Steve Perry, "We're Still Here"
From: Traces (2018)

Perry's first scripted video since 1994's "Missing You" recalls the pitched nostalgia of Journey's "Still They Ride" – but from a much different perspective. "I think I was the first person to ask him about 'We're Still Here,' and I was taking that as, like, existential," former Rolling Stone editor David Wild told me. "Instead, it was him remembering how he went down to record some- thing in Hollywood at one of the studios and all these young people and rock 'n' roll freaks were out, sort of crawling around — 'streetlight people,' as he once coined it. He was praising and con- necting with them. There's still youth and still energy on the streets."

No. 4. Steve Perry, "Strung Out"
From: Street Talk (1984)

Perry began sessions for this first solo album by tearing through an early version of "Strung Out." It was largely indistinguishable from the average Journey song in both construction and approach. Things got more interesting with the video, as Journey video producer Paul Flattery oversaw a prequel for Perry's "Oh Sherrie" promo clip. "We were trying to make pieces of art as opposed to pieces of commerce," Flattery told me. The obvious goal was to "build on the success of 'Oh Sherrie,' which was a huge, huge hit — and so we wanted to ride the coattails of that. I don't know if anybody had ever done a sequel, let alone a prequel. What happened was, it gave MTV an incentive to play both together as a kind of a suite. So they would say, here's the new Steve Perry thing — and then of course, it would lead into his biggest hit, which wasn't a bad thing to do."

No. 3. Journey, "Faithfully"
From: Frontiers (1983)

A road video for song written on the road about life on the road, and the terrible strain that can put on a relationship. The funny scene with Steve Smith belies this song's underlying message: Author Cain and singer Perry were both struggling against heartbreak. The track itself came together spontaneously, before Perry asked to be alone in the studio to record his vocal. The finished take was unlike any Perry ever tried. He credited that, in part, to the fact that Cain had written "Faithfully" in his own key. "From the opening lines, he's just absolutely dripping with emotion," founding MTV VJ Martha Quinn told me. "Every time you put the needle down, you can just feel it." Perry completed the song by conjuring an ending dance between his “whoa whoa whoa” and Neal Schon's guitar out of thin air.

No. 2. Journey, "Separate Ways"
From: Frontiers (1983)

The set up, featuring Journey members playing air instruments while a model marches around, has been mercilessly mocked. But "Separate Ways" was simply a product of its time – and hardly the worst example of '80s-era video excess. "It goes back to that optimism and sense of fun that people will return to, time and time again," Quinn said. "Rock aficionados may have said, 'Oh, that was cornball.' Well, ask people that are still doing send-ups today, down to every last camera angle." At the same time, the video inadvertently set the stage for future solo success. Perry brought then-girlfriend Sherrie Swafford to the set, and she reportedly became jealous. "You're going to have a slut in your video?" Jonathan Cain remembered Swafford asking Perry. That left Perry to openly wonder if he'd have to write a song for Swafford to smooth things over. "And so he did," Cain said with a laugh.

No. 1. Steve Perry, "Oh Sherrie"
From: Street Talk (1984)

Journey video producer Paul Flattery came up with a story-within-a-story approach that showed Steve Perry pushing back against a typically over-the-top shoot in order to film a more straightforward plea to namesake girlfriend Sherrie Swafford. The rejected high-concept portion originally had an Egyptian motif, but they couldn't find a suitable location, so they switched to a Shakespearean approach. ("I like to think of it as 'Richard III' — with Steve's hair," Flattery quipped.) On set, Perry's concluding interaction with Swafford may have provided some hint at what was to come: "The weird thing was at the very end, the first take we did, he goes: 'Hey, I kinda love you.' By take 6, it was 'I kinda like you,'" Flattery said with a laugh.

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