The Final Countdown

The apogee of AOR, Journey by way of Eurovision, this finely-aged cheese wheel will forever be remembered for the keyboard-driven bombast of the title track, which does for “Space Oddity” what Michael Bay’s Armageddon did to The Right Stuff. There’s a gloppy ballad that shares a name with (but presumably not based on) a Stephen King character, songs written by Swedes about Native Americans and ninjas, and one of the era’s finest rock-songs-about-rock, “Rock the Night.” Hard to decide whether the record’s more goofy than catchy or vice versa, but one thing’s for certain: you will never get that opening keyboard riff out of your head.