This Day in Music History: Journey/Next (02/01)

Next is the third studio album by Journey, released on this day in 1977. The band continued the formula from 1976's Look into the Future but this album also retains some of their progressive rock style from the first album (plus that awesome afro from Neal Schon). It is the last album to feature Gregg Rolie on lead vocals. 

"Spaceman" and "Nickel and Dime" were the two singles released from the album. The instrumental "Cookie Duster" was listed in very early pressings of the album, though not actually...
included on the pressings, and then not listed on the cover art at all. It was later released on their Time³ compilation album.

Although he did not contribute to the album, lead vocalist Robert Fleischman joined Journey shortly after the album's release as a songwriter and the group's first dedicated frontman, sharing lead vocal duties with Rolie during subsequent live shows. Here's a demo that they did before eventually choosing Steve Perry:

Next reached #85 on the Billboard 200 Albums charts.

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Many have claimed that the opening to Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" was copied from "I Would Find You" from this album. Obvious similarities:

I also read somewhere that "Nickel and Dime" (around the 1:05 mark) influenced Rush on their song "Xanadu" (around 4:20). I can kind of hear that too:

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