Any Way You Want It/Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'

Any Way You Want It / Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin': The Glee Cast's Journey Mashup and Its Billboard Moment

Note: This entry covers the Glee Cast recording of the medley mashup combining "Any Way You Want It" and "Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'," two songs originally recorded by Journey. It is not a discussion of either original Journey recording.

When the television series Glee premiered on Fox in 2009, it introduced a model for pop culture engagement that nobody in the network television landscape had seen in quite that form before. The show took well-known popular songs, arranged them for its fictional glee club characters, recorded studio versions with its cast, and released those recordings commercially, where they competed directly with the original hits that had inspired them. The commercial results were, by any reasonable measure, extraordinary, and the Columbia Records releases of Glee soundtrack material throughout the show's early seasons generated genuine chart activity rather than simply serving as promotional merchandise.

The mashup of "Any Way You Want It" and "Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'," both originally recorded and made famous by the rock band Journey, appeared as part of the Glee Cast's extensive catalog of recordings tied to the show's episodes. Journey's music held particular significance in the Glee universe because the show had already used Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" as the closing song of its pilot episode, a choice that had spectacular commercial consequences. That recording reached the top of the iTunes chart and demonstrated that Glee could move significant numbers of downloads through its television placement.

The original Journey recordings that provided the raw material for this mashup came from distinct periods of the band's catalog. "Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'" was released by Journey in 1979 and reached number sixteen on the Billboard Hot 100, representing one of the band's earlier mainstream commercial breakthroughs. "Any Way You Want It" followed in 1980 and reached number twenty-three on the Hot 100. Both songs were classic rock staples by the time Glee incorporated them, familiar to multiple generations of listeners and carrying strong nostalgic associations for adult audiences who had grown up with them.

The Glee arrangement combined elements of both songs in a medley format that allowed the cast members performing the material to demonstrate range while also capitalizing on the nostalgic appeal of both compositions. The arrangement was produced with the high-energy, polished sound that characterized Glee's studio recordings, prioritizing vocal performance and dramatic impact over any attempt to replicate the original hard rock textures of Journey's recordings. The Glee versions generally softened the harder elements of their source material while maintaining the melodic hooks that had made those songs recognizable in the first place.

Columbia Records released the Glee Cast recordings as part of the series of compilations tied to the show's seasons. The commercial infrastructure around Glee's music releases was sophisticated by the standards of television tie-in recordings, reflecting the network's and label's recognition that the show's audience was willing to purchase music it encountered through the program. The digital download era was well established by 2010, and Glee's releases were structured to take advantage of the ease with which television viewers could purchase songs immediately after hearing them on broadcast.

The Glee Cast's handling of Journey material proved to be among the show's most commercially successful musical choices. Journey's catalog had the advantage of being both universally familiar to older viewers and genuinely infectious enough to attract younger audiences who might be encountering the songs for the first time through the television program. The combination of nostalgia and discovery drove chart performance for several Glee-Journey recordings during the show's peak popularity period.

The episode in which the mashup appeared contributed to one of the show's most-watched seasons, a period when Glee commanded enormous cultural attention and its music releases were treated as genuine pop events. The cast members who performed this particular arrangement included individuals who had developed genuine fan followings of their own, which amplified the commercial reach of the recording beyond what the show's general audience alone would have generated.

In the broader context of Glee's relationship with classic rock catalog, the Journey mashup represented the show at its most commercially astute, combining two songs that complemented each other melodically and thematically while offering the kind of high-energy ensemble performance that the program's audience had come to expect. The recording stands as a document of a specific moment in American television and music history when the boundaries between broadcast entertainment and the pop charts were unusually permeable.