Creativity Quote by Neal Schon

Schon is pitching a sales tactic as a love letter, and the move is smarter than it looks. By invoking Prince - the patron saint of industry-side mischief who famously bundled albums with concert tickets - he frames Journey's giveaway not as desperation in a streaming economy, but as inheritance: a veteran band borrowing a disruptive play from a legend. The name-drop is a legitimacy shield. It tells fans and gatekeepers alike: we're not behind; we're adapting.

The key phrase is "best store". It's blunt, almost comically literal, and that's the point. In 2026, the traditional "store" is a ghost town, and streaming turns new music into a rounding error. Schon is admitting what most legacy acts learn the hard way: the only reliable marketplace left is the live room, where attention isn't fragmented and loyalty has already been paid for in time, travel, and ticket fees. The CD becomes less a product than a souvenir and a conversion funnel - a way to make the new material unavoidable, to put it physically in the hands of people who still care.

There's subtextive defensiveness, too. Journey is a band whose cultural footprint is dominated by catalog staples; new releases fight the gravitational pull of "Don't Stop Believin'". Giving the album away sidesteps the embarrassment of low chart performance and reframes the metric: success isn't units sold, it's fans reached. The rhetoric turns commerce into community while quietly acknowledging that the old retail world is over - and that the stage is the last place where rock bands still control the terms.