Journey - Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)

What this video is

Released in February 1983 as the lead single from Journey's 'Frontiers' album, 'Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)' arrived at a pivotal inflection point in American rock's relationship with visual media. MTV had launched in August 1981, and by early 1983 was actively reshaping how arena-rock acts were perceived commercially. Journey — a band that had built its audience entirely through touring and radio — resisted the…

Why it matters

This video is a canonical artifact of early arena-rock MTV crossover, representing the first fully choreographed concept video produced by Journey. It documents the collision between a pre-visual rock act and the emerging music video medium, capturing the aesthetic vacuum of 1983 before…

The director

Tom Buckholtz was a music video and commercial director active in the early 1980s who came from the world of directing commercials, as was common for music video directors of the period. He is credited as director on Journey's 'Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)'…