Taking Sides: NEW ORDER VS RUSH?

Why?

I often think that wrt to these bands, it's true.

The level at which Peter Hook hates his old bandmates give NO the edge imo. Rush are fairly boring in that regard.

Why did they fall out?

fwiw i think NO are a decent band with some great songs but they're a tad overrated on ilm

and turrican we used to have some good taking sides on ilm back in the day

I love NO. I only really like 1 Rush album.

how about we just vote on the merits of those two photographs

sounds fair

Going by live shows: Rush A. NO also an A but with chemical assistance so Rush.

Going by live shows: Rush A. NO also an A but with chemical assistance so Rush.

Saw Rush live twice (2011 and 2013, the latter with a string section) and they were great both times. I hardly ever listen to their albums.
I love everything New Order did from 1983-89, don't care about anything after that, and have no desire to see them live.

I guess that's a vote for NO?

Tough call! I might ultimately love the same number of albums from each, but NO has all those singles ... But then, Rush live had fans air drumming/guitaring/bassing *at the same time*.

This is an impossible choice.

Thanks to this poll I now have the first verse lyrics of 'Regret' stuck in my head, to the melody of the fist verse of 'Red Barchetta'.

*first even

also Rush wins this imo

Yeah, band I love vs band I mostly hate

I think I actually did a Joy Division vs Rush thread once, comparing how the two bands bridged the late 70s to early 80s going from heavy (if cold) guitars to icy synths over dynamic rhythm sections.

what do I get out of this?

a double martini with Geddy Lee

^ the dream

Voted a Tetley's bitter with Stephen Morris.

i voted for new order but i wonder if i'd be happier if i was the kind of person who'd choose rush

I don't get what you mean by that statement, treeship. There's a lot of joy in New Order's music

treeship and the snow dog
square for battle!
let the fray begin

Maybe treesh just wants to read some Ayn Rand than mess about with fash synths

Rush

I have a lot of time for New Order, but after some thought I'm going to go with Rush. Why? Because the only New Order studio album that is front-to-back great is Technique. All of the others from Movement up until Brotherhood are a mix of mostly stunning moments with the occasional bit of filler, and from Republic onwards mostly filler with the occasional stunning moment.

Every album Rush released from 2112 to Power Windows is fantastic. That's 8 fantastic studio albums vs. 1.

eight straight albums without one example of filler? That's a record unsurpassed by the Stones, Beatles, Aretha, Sleater Kinney, etc

i like rush a lot but i think almost every record in their classic run is slightly uneven (even signals, my favorite record by them, feels this way to me). i think the same thing about new order, but imo several new order singles changed music, so it's new order

I'm genuinely curious about what Treesh meant. I was trying to work out whether it's something about how a pov built around finding individual strength to struggle against meaninglessness and corruption could lead to greater happiness than expressions of joy or, uh, whatever it is that Bernard Sumner is expressing.

(although idk if there is any actual evidence that Rush fans are happier than New Order fans)

LOL @ anyone voting Rush tbh

I'd make the same case as Turrican, just with the bands reversed and the ratio being 7 to 1 (or 10 to 1 if you include Joy Division).

Now, if you were to just break it down the a battle of the rhythm sections ...

Fills as integral part of composition vs fills irrelevant to process

i love a good drumfill yet fills irrelevant to process wins every time

What I'm generally surprised about is how many people here seem to like (or even love) both bands! Like, in my mind they are polar opposites.

Rush.

New Order is a blind spot for me outside of a few songs. I expect them to win though.

Rush.

New Order is a blind spot for me outside of a few songs. I expect them to win though.

Instrumentally, it’s hard to make comparisons - Morris is the most compelling part of the band Imo due to his repetition. Geddy plays a much more traditional role to Hook and Sumner is way more like a Neil Young as a guitar player compared to Lifeson. The sonic space they occupy is obviously very different most of the time (not forgetting Gillian but just coming from the original gtr/bs/dr of the original band)

Prefer Rush as a band but can see why Morris>Peart for example; perfectly feasible to prefer NO’s setup beyond a preference to their music/albums/singles

Peart is obviously a highly influential drummer, but there are virtually no drummers clearly influenced by Peart I'd want to listen to. Morris is also massively influential, but drummers influenced by him play in all sorts of great bands.

Funny how New Order, for all its robotic inclinations, is actually super loose in its arrangements, but Rush, three versatile virtuosos pretty much capable of anything, specializes in super precise highly locked in arrangements. They really are total opposites.

"Working Man" is a rare example of a 70s hard rock song where the bassline is far more complex and busy than the guitar line. I feel like most of the propulsion in that tune is coming from the bass, buried in the mix as it is.

(talking about the verse/chorus part of the song)

I also like how Lee keeps varying the line. He hardly ever plays the same thing twice during the verses, while Lifeson keeps hammering away at the riff. It's a fun one to play.

The way Peart shakes up his arrangements is pretty awesome, too. Even in the songs with more traditional verse-chorus structure he rarely repeats himself. "Subdivisions" is a great example, he's always changing things up.

new order is better in concept than reality
rush is better in reality than in concept

I like them both, Rush did a way wider variety of and volume of great work and being an amazing live band for over 40 years counts for something

new order is better in concept than reality
rush is better in reality than in concept

I can get with this. For sure, the *idea* of New Order is superior (to me) to the *idea* of Rush. But in practice/reality, I probably like Rush more.

Not sure what the idea of New Order is tbf.

fusing electronics with people playing? bridging punk and programmed dance music?

Emo Kraftwerk?

Either Rush, with Bernard Sumner on vocals, or New Order, with Geddy Lee on vocals.

three versatile virtuosos pretty much capable of anything

I sort of wonder about this, actually. Outside of that one EP of (kind of meh) 60s rock covers, I don't know how much evidence there is of them playing non-Rush music. I actually don't know how well Lifeson or Lee would acquit themselves if they had to e.g. do session gigging, jam on standards, play Bach at a wedding, etc. (Peart did study with a jazz drummer late in his career, interestingly.)

I said four years ago on Rush Vs. Led Zeppelin CHOPS ONLY Poll :

most traditional definitions of mastery and musicianship would seem to involve deep familiarity and competence with some sort of standard repertoire, whether common practice, jazz, folk, etc. Zeppelin clearly had this. While Rush are dazzlingly skilled in their way, their 'chops' seem very non-traditional: they are great at composing and playing Rush songs, whether that requires playing in Locrian mode in 5/4 or playing bass synth pedals and keyboards and singing at the same time or finding all sorts of ways to process guitar sounds. There is not much, though, to suggest that they have a very strong grounding in any idiom, even compared to the way that bands like Yes or ELP could jump between pastiches of English folk, Baroque, jazz, etc. Not only do they not improvise very much but I am also not sure that they could play from notated scores very effectively. As such, their 'chops' might seem somewhat 'modernist' in a way?

New Order, with Geddy Lee on vocals.

Maybe parts of Signals are as close as you could get to this?

new order is better in concept than reality

I guess no one in this thread dances.

Afaict most people itt are picking New Order.

I would definitely not call Rush "capable of anything," not after watching Peart attempt to swing during his drum solo on the 2011 tour.

Hah.

I file them under weirdos like Belew, clearly gifted but specialists.

I wonder to what extent the hyper-precise, locked-in nature of the arrangements that you described is a product of their limitations in that way. NB I actually think it's really cool that they came up with such a meticulous, idiosyncratic style, possibly as a result.

That's a really good question. I guess The other year we saw Geddy sitting in with Yes, that's no small potatoes. but the other guys don't really do that.

There's also the fact that all of Rush's stuff from 2112 to Power Windows is impeccably produced, whereas the production on prime New Order LP's ranges from OTM (Technique) to "needs more work" (selected tracks from Power, Corruption & Lies, Low-Life and Brotherhood) ...

Also, Geddy Lee's voice isn't for everyone but I never sit through a classic Rush track thinking "hmm, needs more autotune"

ALSO, there's also the fact that The Cure did New Order better than New Order.

Though not the electronic stuff, the Cure never really went that route.

I mentioned Belew, btw, because once I watched him getting interviewed, and the guy asking questions kept asking about his influences, and Belew mentioned someone like Hendrix. So the interviewer asked if Belew could demonstrate something he got from Hendrix, and it was like pulling teeth before Belew did a couple of seconds of a Hendrix-y sort of thing. Come to think of it, Fripp is another guitarist who I have only heard mention Hendrix as an influence, but I've never heard him play anything but Fripp-y stuff. Same with Eddie Van Halen.

i never sit through a classic new order track thinking it needs more autotune either, weird

Heh, I like the out of tune-ness of New Order, it's one of my favorite things about them.

If you can't hear Sumner's obvious intonation problems or at times painful vocal performances on their pre-'True Faith' material, perhaps you need to do the "double Van Gogh" or at least look into getting your ears syringed.

ALSO, there's also the fact that The Cure did New Order better than New Order.

Ludicrous.

Fwiw, the dodgy vocal performances don't prevent me from enjoying New Order, but would I enjoy New Order more if they'd had that element of their sound sorted out much earlier? Undoubtedly.

Again, Robert Smith's voice isn't for everyone, but he has a better command of pitch than Sumner and writes better lyrics. Better melody lines too, come to think of it.

Gallup also a superior bassist to Hook in that he has a greater range melodically.

Smith, Gallup, Sumner, Hook.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN3C22ga-Z4

I think tom is a secret rush fan

And you're a secret Yes fan.

there are no secrets on this thread

If you can't hear Sumner's obvious intonation problems or at times painful vocal performances on their pre-'True Faith' material, perhaps you need to do the "double Van Gogh" or at least look into getting your ears syringed.

― Le Baton Rose (Turrican),

Part of his/their charm. I love sharp objects!

Freddie Starr (Hitler in shorts) (Tom D.) at 2:47 22 Apr 19

ALSO, there's also the fact that The Cure did New Order better than New Order.

Ludicrous.


this is a weird opinion, like I think those bands are so different, other than being from the same era and having a lot of the same fans, I have never once thought they were alike in any way

like I could detail the many obvious ways but it feels like....I dunno, doing ALSO, there's the fact that The Pop Group did Durutti Column better than Durutti Column

i mean it's as accurate as, if i'm recalling correctly, "roxy music did everything on avalon that the blue nile tried and failed to do", i'd just let t share these kinds of takes and move on

This is obviously Rush for me, but I'm much less of a NO fan than most on here. I like a bunch of their singles and that's about it. OTOH, I'm a Rush super fan.

I do agree about their lack of versatility. Rush is extremely good at making Rush music, and made tons of great recordings for nearly 40 years, but they aren't particularly great when they get out of that comfort zone. Don't really think they needed to though.

Part of his/their charm. I love sharp objects!

― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, April 23, 2019 4:18 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

that "cure did new order" thing really calls for a formal retraction or a very elaborate defense as the two bands' only similarities in any way are "they're from the 80s" -- bass tone not remotely similar; bass leads in new order (their real innovation), the cure is a guitar-centered band even though they do a lot of interesting things with that; Robert Smith can write a decent lyric, Sumner essentially does the old dadaist "cut up a newspaper article or a poem, drop the individual words into a bag, pull them out one by one and write them down in that order, the end result will be a poem about you" thing -- and in any case, even if you're a defender of Sumner as a lyricist, thematically they're on different planets; Stephen Morris utterly key to New Order's sound, the Cure have gone through several drummers and afaik there's nobody arguing that a drummer change resulted in a severe reset of their sound (I stand ready to be upbraided on this subject by DJP); the Cure are extremely curious stylistically whereas New Order pursue a refinement of their singular style their whole career, building on earlier work always -- where is New Order's "The Lovecats"? Where's their "Friday I'm in Love"? Which album is their "Disintegration"? This last point is the most important -- the Cure are restless, curious musicians with a big appetite for new looks. New Order are like Captain Ahab: they have this one thing they're looking for musically. Their read on it changes over time, and so their music changes and grows, too, but they're always Doing the New Order Thing. That's true of the Cure insofar as Robert Smith as a vocalist is too distinctive to be mistaken for anybody else, but not in any other way.

Rush is a prog band from Canada who are ridiculous and who fuckin rule. hope this clears everything up

William Dean Howells wrote novels on many subjects; range doesn't equal depth.

many xposts

I think what you mean is "I like New Order better than the Cure." There isn't any musical or thematic sense in which they compare.

where is New Order's "The Lovecats"?

I'm unsure what this means -- a charming chartbound confection?

Where's their "Friday I'm in Love"?

"Age of Consent," "True Faith," "Fine Time," "Bizarre Love Triangle"

Which album is their "Disintegration"?

PCL or Technique, the latter released the same year as the Cure's purported masterwork.

I'd say PCL because it has "Your Silent Face."

Surely it is a massive plus for New Order that they DON'T have a "Friday I'm in Love"

anyway it's Rock the Shack

The Lovecats is a stand-up bass playing a jazz baseline over a jazz beat with a horn chart accenting the proceedings. It came completely out of left field, following the The Walk, a synth-led, jittery lament which resembles "The Lovecats" about as closely as New Order resemble the Miles Davis Quintet. New Order, for all their glory, simply aren't capable of this kind of musical understanding -- of genre as accessory, of style as second-skin. New Order have never, at any point in their career, attempted any such stylistic shift. Whether the Cure pulled it off or not is a matter of taste (to me, they did, but I can see a case for "no way"), but this is only one example of their ability to shape-shift while retaining their identity. It's miraculous. New Order haven't got that in them; the most one can say is "they become increasing dependent on synths."

None of the (excellent) singles you cite are really like "Friday I'm in Love," I don't think - they're just good singles. "Friday I'm in Love" seeks, and finds, the mythic General Audience. It's shocking: this is the band whose idea of a dance-floor chorus, just a few years ago, was "I don't care if you don't / and I don't feel if you don't / and I don't want it if you don't / and I won't say it if you won't say it first"? It is, the very same band.

Disintegration's distinction isn't that it's great, it's that it's a big, immersive ocean of sound & mood. New Order aren't the kind of band who can do a Disintegration -- they write ten or twelve songs and they release them. It's wrong to say "they're a singles act," their albums are too good for that, but they don't have Let's Do This Big Thing like Disintegration in them. It is not in their nature.

they also don't have any bonkers stylistic detours like The Top in them, to say nothing of how wildly it succeeds. The two bands are completely unlike one another.

and, like, I really dig the Cure, and am probably a bigger New Order fan in the final analysis -- the benefit of their relentless focus is you get "Regret" after ten or fifteen years, there can only be one "Regret." But to say "New Order did the Cure better than the Cure" is just mystifyingly wrong.

Your posts are fair. I love both bands, NO more, in part because their commitment to the dance floor gives their blankness a queerness that the Cure couldn't approximate.

As far as pure pop, "Bizarre Love Triangle" and "Friday I'm in Love" are equally effective.

jclc relentlessly otm, even though i think the point being made was that the cure did new order better than new order

a bad point that's pointless to make

their commitment to the dance floor gives their blankness a queerness that the Cure couldn't approximate.

I think this is very true, and is an interesting thing about the Cure -- Smith wears makeup & does up his hair, but he's a straight man singing straight-man love songs. New Order are a bunch of straight Mancunians afaik but their cultural context is the dance floor, an incontestably queer space which they understand musically. They also learn, when they're very young, that the producer is the boss -- that really, "New Order" isn't a "band" so much as a production imperative. The Cure are Robert Smith's band. They are more in the 70s great-man mode. Sumner proves every time he sets pen to paper that he knows he doesn't really have any big ideas, that he's a worker in the service of an idea. Smith is an auteur at the end of the day, though a very generous one who understands group dynamics in music.

if y'all wanted to make Geddy Lee cry, mission accomplished

New Order and Rush are both bands I kind of want to like more than I actually do. I always enjoy it when I hear an individual song from one of these bands but have a hard time making it through an entire album.

I'm gonna strategically vote for Rush since I think ideally this poll should end in a tie.

New Order and the Cure are nothing alike, but ironically, "Friday I'm In Love" is one of the few Cure songs that actually sounds a little like New Order. That and "In Between Days" could pass in a pinch, vocalist aside. And coincidence or not, the Cure is one of those acts that in fact took a big leap (imo) with the addition of a new drummer and conspicuously dropped in quality when said drummer left. I agree that New Order is pretty generally incurious as musicians and writers. Their effortlessness (that is, nothing they've ever done has sounded like the product of much effort) is one of their greatest attributes. The Cure is essentially a psychedelic rock band, imo, which may explain why they're so often stumbling or steering into new sonic territory, but I get the impression they toil.

No accidents in Rush.

Sumner proves every time he sets pen to paper

too kind

Oh, and as for Smith the auteur, iirc the stylistic detours of KissMeX3 and a lot of the stuff on Disintegration came from him letting the others in on the songwriting process. Right?

New Order and Rush ... honestly, those are two bands where I still have no idea where the songs come from. A person? Jamming? Two (or more?) people putting their ideas together? I have no idea. Utterly inscrutable.

Let's give NO and Cure equal credit for the following: they're generous about songwriting credits, hence their invincibility into the 21st century. Members leave, but they don't quarrel over songwriting.

"Leave Me Alone" is one New Order song that I love and it does remind me of the Cure, musically. It probably hits just the right spot for me by providing those guitars without Robert Smith's histrionics.

i mean it's as accurate as, if i'm recalling correctly, "roxy music did everything on avalon that the blue nile tried and failed to do", i'd just let t share these kinds of takes and move on

― lowercase (eric), Tuesday, April 23, 2019 12:12 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Absolutely 100% accurate, then. Although, I'm talking about my comments on Avalon in their original form, which obviously I completely stand by, rather than the slight misquotation above.

I'm listening to A Farewell to Kings for the first time in years -- it's amazing how Rush is more New Orderlike insofar as I totally hear this as the band that will be making "Tom Sawyer" in 8 years or so, and yet, this does not resemble "Tom Sawyer" or "Limelight" -- it dawdles, it idles, it wanders -- it's like, they're still driving the same car, but whereas before they were doing day-drives in obscure hilly places, now they're going down a highway through big cities at night

that "cure did new order" thing really calls for a formal retraction or a very elaborate defense as the two bands' only similarities in any way are "they're from the 80s"

No it doesn't, no it doesn't and no, that isn't the case. Listen to the records.

thanks to jclc for awesome posts saying what I was too dumb/lazy expand on

as my final manic contribution of the morning here (if you believe that, real estate in Florida, etc) I want to say that Lifeson's interest in his guitar tone is as obsessive as Smith's & a TONE WAR poll would be great if we had more saddo tone-merchant guitar types on this board (saddo not meant as pejorative, I have spent more money on pedals than is befitting for a guy who mainly plays acoustic)

Rush and NO both '80s synth pioneers, in their own ways.

Lifeson's late 70s/early 80s lead playing is endlessly fascinating to me, real liquid and such interesting melodic ideas, almost like if Fripp decided to make music people enjoy

I don't think any classic rock 70s band did a better job of absorbing new wave and what was going on around them in better way, while staying so true to what they were....I mean so many acts through crappy synth horns on stuff, Rush came through with something as beautiful as Subdivisions

ironically, "Friday I'm In Love" is one of the few Cure songs that actually sounds a little like New Order. That and "In Between Days" could pass in a pinch, vocalist aside.

'In Between Days' is a really good example of many, actually. It's New Order's 'Dreams Never End' done properly, or doing New Order better than New Order, one could say.

you are such a little stinker

Also, 'The Lovecats' is an anomaly. Let's talk instead about how 'The Walk' is a better version of 'Blue Monday' ...

No.

I don't think any classic rock 70s band did a better job of absorbing new wave and what was going on around them in better way, while staying so true to what they were.

Genesis got really close on Duke and the incredible Invisible Touch, but yes overall Rush were better at it.

Turrican, I've liked you on many threads, often concluding that your detractors take you too seriously, but you're exhibiting your worst traits here. Insisting "no, it isn't" while a musician patiently explains similarities and differences is way too macho and aggro a stance for me. When several people with wildly different personalities tell me I have a problem, I don't know, I might look in the mirror.

Rush was better than most at borrowing from new wave. There were a lot of bands that aped the Police, but Rush incorporated elements of that band really well.

Rush in '82 and >> The Police

A lot of examples were cited of things that The Cure do which New Order couldn't do, which is OTM - there is no way that New Order have a Disintegration or 'The Lovecats' in them. That wasn't the point, though. The point was that when The Cure do New Order - which is more than most here would dare to admit - they do it better. Better lyrics, better singing, better playing, better production. I think it's pretty difficult to argue that, and I like New Order.

Like, New Order have a sound, but they're not even the best at it! I feel the same way about The Police vs. Rush, actually.

There were a lot of bands that aped the Police, but Rush incorporated elements of that band really well.

T/S Neil Peart vs. Stewart Copeland

I like how Rush is the secret catalyst for a New Order vs the Cure discussion

I enjoy Copeland's high tuned snare sound, particularly on Synchronicity, and rate him very highly as a drummer. I think Peart has the edge in terms of feel and technical skill, though. People like to talk about Peart's drumming in terms of cold, calculated technique, but there's a lot of feel in his drumming, a thing which people don't pay attention to because they're marvelling at the technique.

reading this thread from the top down, i got to this treeship post, and i'm just gonna stop there, because it's perfect:

i voted for new order but i wonder if i'd be happier if i was the kind of person who'd choose rush
― Trϵϵship, Monday, April 22, 2019 10:36 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I genuinely do not think the Cure "do new order" at all, ever. "The Walk" vs. "Blue Monday" is an interesting contrast for minor-key Oberheim-driven floor bangers of the 80s,I'll admit, but "Blue Monday" filled that floor -- the Cure was always more divisive, at least on the SoCal & PDX dance floors where I stepped to both songs when they were new. I mean we can disagree about this, that's fine, but I have in fact "listen[ed] to the records" -- they are not similar. The synth on "The Walk" sounds like something off a Goblin record. I'll own that these two share more space than most Cure & New Order tunes do, it does seem that Smith & Tolhurst were getting curious about what was up with dance 12"s & all that before they rediscovered acid, whereupon they do "The Top" -- a move New Order couldn't imagine in their most E-driven fantasies.

Turrican, I've liked you on many threads, often concluding that your detractors take you too seriously, but you're exhibiting your worst traits here.

How long before Alfred joins the ever growing legion of detractors? Poll maybe?

Let's talk instead about how 'The Walk' is a better version of 'Blue Monday' ...

It's a matter of taste, but if you don't have any knowledge of or appreciation for electronic music or dance music and are a boiled-beef-and-carrots rock fan then I can imagine holding this opinion.

To say that there are no similarities between 'The Walk' and 'Blue Monday' is a hell of a stretch!

Did anyone say there were no similarities?

How long before Tom D knocks off his obsession with me? 🤔

Did anyone say there were no similarities?

― Freddie Starr (Hitler in shorts) (Tom D.), Tuesday, April 23, 2019 3:01 PM (forty-five seconds ago) Bookmark Flag PostPermalink

They did, as it happens!

(xp) until you're banned again, I imagine.

a move New Order couldn't imagine in their most E-driven fantasies.

Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson is among the more colorful personalities in rock music, but he’s even more fun when he’s on drugs. At least that’s what we gather from an interview he did with Classic Rock shortly after his 60th birthday. Asked about his favorite drugs, he responded, “Cannabis, I think, is the best,” but then went on to expound on the many wonders of MDMA:

I did take ecstasy and that was fun. That was in the mid-90s. I loved it. So many relationships opened up and became deeper, and they remain so. It’s the one drug where you have those sorts of experiences and they stay with you. I found that after a while that was wearing off. The more you do it, the less it feels like those first times.

Lifeson then goes on to tell a hilarious story about doing ecstasy with his wife and listening to a lot of Nine Inch Nails and Tool:

I remember doing E one night with my wife, just the two of us. In the living room in our old house we had a huge sound system – 6,000 watts or something. We got dressed up and sat there drinking orange juice and smoking about a thousand cigarettes and we listened to Nine Inch Nails and Tool – all this loud, intense, heavy music. We had such a ball.

So there you have it. Not only does Alex Lifeson listen to heavy rock music, but he listens to it exactly as it’s intended to be heard.

Alex Lifeson, my man!

Amazing story

He "sat around" listening to Tool. What a waste!

Honestly, when I saw Tool live I was silently begging for a comfortable chair. They're dull as shit live.

In that sort of situation, you'd wanna be blasting something suitable that brings on that irresistible compulsion to shake arse. I'll bet Nine Inch Nails got him moving.

Pretty hip for a guy in Rush nonetheless.

I wonder if he ever listened to New Order or has an opinion on The Cure.

I bet he has.

wouldn't be at all surprising

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/mar/24/rush-moving-pictures

"as the 70s became the 80s Rush changed again, just as dramatically as they had when Peart joined. Hair was cut, and so were song lengths. Synths appeared. Lee was listening to Ultravox and Simple Minds, while the influence of the Police and Talking Heads was all over 1980's Permanent Waves and its massive hit single, Spirit of Radio."

a big reveal in This Is Not A Photograph, the Mission of Burma documentary is their manager said that right at they broke up they had just turned down an opening slot on Rush's North American tour

if they knew Burma and Ultravox it's probably safe to say they knew the Cure and New Order

Peart was 31 in 1983, Geddy and Alex were 30, the same age as David Byrne

Toronto station CFNY ("The Spirit of Radio"!)'s top albums list of 1982 includes both Rush and New Order: http://www.spiritofradio.ca/Charts.asp#1981

Uh: http://www.spiritofradio.ca/Charts.asp#1982

the Cure have gone through several drummers and afaik there's nobody arguing that a drummer change resulted in a severe reset of their sound

Not to suggest that Joan has not otherwise been joyously otm on this thread, but 96% of everybody would argue that (per Josh's caveat) a drummer change was coincident with a reset of their sound.

In the Tolhurst years, his limitations are the same as the other players to begin with, and as their skill increases beyond his, he continues to suit the style. There's a tension in the music, Smith trying to create big soundscapes with scant instrumentation, at the same time as his lyrics grow to express a tension between wracking emotions and fears, and his trained British incommunicativeness. Lol's slowly progressing drums help to keep an audible foot on the brake, a reassurance, a groundedness.

The addition of drum machines, delightfully, gave Smith a freedom that Lol's mechanical feel didn't, and then the Smith-plus-Andy-Anderson lineup gets you the immediate swerve of Love Cats, followed by the unprecedented freakout of The Top.

Boris then arrives and unshowily anchors the next decade's lineups of skilled musicians (plus Simon) who can play pop or goth or dreamy or heavy or airy or heartsick, whatever Bob or they are taken by in the grasp of whim, but have it all sound ineffably Like The Cure, no longer like a weird experiment that Robert Smith was trying at 4am with a wired engineer and a session bloke.

(they do this by completely reinventing what Like The Cure sounds like at this point, but they do it definitively. also nb Simon is good not bad)

And then Jason Thudfist turns up and institutes a quarter-century reign of boredom over the band's sound.

DJP can school us all on which songs from the 21st Century are Pretty Good Actually and The B-Sides That Should Have Been Singles, but every time I think "I am certain he is correct but also every flaw in them is surely borified by a factor of at least 4 due to the drumming," and my brain falls asleep and crawls out of my ear by the time I've played two youtubes, so I can never remember anything about them

is DJP still around?

To pointlessly add to the Cure comparisons in this thread, I will say that as I move through middle age, the Cure move me less and less, whereas New Order still have a massive emotional impact. I don't think I could articulate why though.

I find a lot of New Order and Rush oddly comforting. Though I currently listen to the Cure more than I ever did before, not least for catharsis but also for all those great pop moments.

Maybe I should have included another poll option

who is Rush's The Cure

Triumph

It may have been mentioned upthread but there's the occasional Cure song that does that Peter Hook bass melody thing, isn't there? Esp. obvious in the intro. Although the chronology sometimes runs the other way: the intro to "Sunrise" off Lowlife is like a sped-up version of that from "The Holy Hour" off Faith, and that of "All the Way" from Technique has a hint of "In-between Days".

I don't think The Cure does that thing better than New Order though. (As for the actual poll - New Order 1981-1989 are pretty much my favourite band ever, whereas I don't think I've ever knowingly heard Rush. I thought I had, but it turned out to be by Asia. I mostly know them from a line in a Pavement song. I know I shouldn't be voting.)

the cure and new order often have very similar melodic sensibilities and often have prominent chorus pedal bass guitar melodies etc., so the comparison makes a lot of sense to me but i disagree with turrican's assertion that the cure were better at the musical territory where they overlap. like both are great at it but new order are more consistently great at that thing and i tend to enjoy their discography more, while the cure are much broader in sound and with that there's a lot of inconsistency.

wrt to the poll new order are probably my favourite band ever but it's hard to think of a band i'm more ambivalent on than rush? what i've heard of them is generally fine but not really my thing

'A Forest' is such a great song that New Order managed to get not one, but two songs out of it, and both are on Low-Life. 'Sunrise' mimics the intro without using the same chord progression, and 'This Time of Night' actually uses the chord progression. 'Sunrise' is fantastic, but not a patch on 'A Forest' ...

The same with 'All the Way' and 'Just Like Heaven', they're both great, but 'Just Like Heaven' has the edge.

But nobody does Rush better than Rush!

Chord progressions are chord progressions, lots of them sound the same because lots of them are the same. I don't know why but I can't really imagine New Order sitting round listening to the Cure.

Well, they were both around at the same time so I'm willing to bet that they were aware of and listened to each other.

I'd like to think that if Ian Curtis had lived, he would have enjoyed the idea of being in The Cure.

Possibly. Robert Smith was a big fan of Joy Division, that's pretty obvious.

here's a Cure cover of Love Will Tear Us Apart, to stay relentlessly on-topic itt

OK, I have now listened to one Rush song. It was called "Tom Sawyer" (the first thing YouTube threw at me). It's one of the worst things I've ever heard, amazing really how it combines so much to hate. My knowledge of both bands still rather lopsided but fuck it, I'm voting.

listening to one song by a band and voting is such bullshit I gotta say

"well now I know all I need to know about that!!!" congratulations, you're the spitting image of a Trump voter

It is one of their most famous songs though.

the stakes are exactly the same too, so I feel suitably chided for having heard no Rush songs but voting New Order

I did hear Mix Master Mike scratching the drums from Tom Sawyer on 32kbps live streams when he joined the Beastie Boys in 1998 though

It's more like seeing only that clip of Trump mocking a disabled person and knowing everything there is to know.

If you hate "Tom Sawyer" and love New Order, it's probably fair for you to safely cast your vote tbh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9kYUhd7e6Y

I haven't heard that album in 20+ years but it came back into my head in an instant.

Re: Robert Smith being a fan of the Cure, he apparently booked them as a support act back in '79

https://www.spin.com/articles/cure-lol-tolhurst-peter-hook-memoir-bollocks-sell-out

I'm sure Robert Smith was a huge Cure fan!

lol whoops

I rarely listen to peak-prog Rush, but I put on "A Farewell to Kings" today and thought, man, this is awesome, how can it not be Rush? But then I put on "Low-Life," which I haven't heard in who knows how long, and it kicked ass (I stand by "Emo Kraftwerk"). So ... back to square one.

lol, Willl.

Rush, easily.

Now, Rush vs. Joy Division... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

This thread got me thinking about what a Rush cover of "The Perfect Kiss" would sound like. I can kind of hear it in my mind. You know Peart would be hitting all sorts of blocks and bells on the intro. I'd think it would work and might not be as unlikely a cover. I know Rush liked Ultravox quite a bit or have seen them referenced in articles.

It would work in the imaginary split 7" between the two groups. I have no idea what Rush tune New Order could do at this point but they probably would have been able to give a nice 80s tech pop sound to some of Rush's stuff like that. Can't see NO much acknowledging Rush's existence.

A synthetic disco version of A Farewell To Kings, with disaffected, nonchalant vocals would be nice.

I like New Order, but I think Rush are about as talented as it gets. I don't love all their stuff, but their musicianship is undeniable.

re: the New Order vs. The Cure discussion above, the two songs from those artists that remind me the most of each other are Your Silent Face and Plainsong, they both have a kind of downcast magnificence

New Order performing Your Silent Face at the Berkeley Community Theater was one of the most amazing live music experiences I've ever had

New Order could totally do one of the power ballads from Power Windows. Like Grand Designs or Middletown Dreams or Emotion Detector.

But not as well.

They could, but it's too on the nose. I'd rather hear them interpret one of the more metal/ren faire sounding tunes.

I knew opening this thread would be a mistake.

ultimately I don't really think these bands are comparable

they're not anything alike, so it's just...which aesthetic / songwriting / performance style do you prefer

Oh c'mon, New Order's whole sound was clearly an attempt to capture the electronic majesty of Signals.

I liked Signals but New Order had a much more thrilling homemade emotional sound to me

I knew opening this thread would be a mistake.

― All along there is the sound of feedback (Sund4r),

New board description etc

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

98!

Bottles of beer on the wall?

108

Sorry, I'm sleep deprived and bitchy.

Got a feeling New Order would beat a lot of bands on ILM

Why does ILM not like to rock?

Perfect Kiss video version rocks harder than every Rush song combined

Barney certainly rocks those shorts.

B-but...

http://www.rushoddities.com/rush-oddities/images/geddy-alex-tennis-73-full.jpg

bands in shorts poll imminent, a certain ratio's gonna win though

I expect no less from a bunch of Canadian goofballs. New Order in shorts is more of a scandal.

70/80s was an era of rampant short shorts wearing