Best Rush Album [Poll Closes May 7]

I burned "The Manhattan Project" and "The Big Money" onto my iPod a couple of weeks ago; the synth textures and Synclavier effects on the former would be the envy of Some Great Reward-era Depeche Mode.

radiant cocktail of rock

radiant rocktail of cock

I knew there was a Best Rush Album thread!

I just bought Signals on CD! I don't think I've ever owned that on CD! I'm such a goddamn happy camper I don't know what to do with myself. SUBDIVISIONS ALONE!

Holy shit people I am DYING here, listen the the faux reggae beat of "Digital Man"!!!

The Police would be jealous, right???

NEW WORLD MAN WILL WIPE THE MARBLE FLOOR CLEAN

No seriously, I do not understand how they did this faux reggae thing on "Digitial Man". That shit is the fucking deal.

Stewart Copeland would be so goddamn jealous I know we've been over this before but oh my god.

NEW WORLD MAN

I can't even breathe, man. That is just the absolute shit.

"Losing it"...oh my god. I put that on a comp of sad songs I made in 1989. That shit goes way deep with me.

I'd never say Signals was their best album, but Jesus. I just can't stand it.

Music is the most incredible thing in the world.

Peart actually got lessons from Copeland at one point.

Yes, I'm in the process of discovering 80s Rush right now too. I'm wrapping my brain around Power Windows and Grace Under Pressure right now...

Oh I fucking love Power Windows, dude. Meant to play that last night and didn't get to it. Wish I had Grace Under Pressure on CD. Hell I don't even think I've even got that on cassette anymore.

Quick question, do Rush sell out shows?

Sometimes they do. Follow this link for attendance data on their last tour. I assume the financial info is gross, not net.

http://www.rushisaband.com/tour.php

i find it hard not to listen to Hemispheres with a complete, calm smile on my face, in a room where there is no time or place...

i had forgotten how much farewell/hemispheres seems like a 2112 rewrite

i prefer 'hemispheres' to '2112' -- the sidelength suite is my favorite of their songs, and side two is perfect. it's their 'close to the edge' imho, and "la villa strangiato" gives "siberian khatru" a run for its money in GPM (goosebumps per minute). but i'd take '2112' over 'farewell to kings' for sure

Farewell to Kings has "Xanadu", which is frankly better than any side 2 track on 2112.

side 2 of 2112 is kind of an afterthought for me

but side 1 is so iconic that i dunno, for that stretch of time it dominates the whole idea of the band, so that the albums after that for a while are kind of like, rush doin rush stuff, until the blues/zep/etc. elements have been kind of refined out / absorbed into the 80s style and it seems like things have moved on

I also prefer Hemispheres to 2112, but Hemispheres is one of my favourite albums of all time, so...

does HOld Your Fire suck

No, I think its great. Synth-y in a good way.

As in, I think people have a problem with the production on this album but the sound of it seems inseperable from the writing.

I love hold your fire

I also love hold your fire

'open secrets', 'high water' both slay

I think of power windows and hold your fire as twin records, they have the same production pretty much, but power windows got all the worldly songs and HYF got the introspective ones so its even more deeply uncool than baseline rush

Love Hold Your Fire. Production suits the songs, but there's some incredible playing, particularly the drum fills and guitar solos (even more so than usual). I love the arrangements, too. Like Power WIndows better, though.

thanks dudes. I checked it out and I actually liked it a lot on first listen! reminded me of Peter Gabriel at times.

also checked out Roll the Bones. like quite a few of the songs but the main thing that bugs me is the production is sterile as hell, and the arrangements fairly dull. it sounds like session musicians playing, nothing to stand out as Rush. yet I don't *dislike* it, but weirdly it sounds more dated than the albums that came before it. the bass on the title track sounds like the generic "funk-pop" bass that was popular in those days.

I guess now I've heard all of their albums except the debut and Test for Echo.

Ha, it's possible I'm in the same boat! I mean, I love Rush, and have for ... 25 years? Wow. But I don't think I have ever heard the first album or listened to Test for Echo more than once.

Of all the Rush albums, Presto seems the most outlier to me. Almost singer-songwritery, with this really intriguing spare production totally unlike anything that came before or after.

test for echo is definitely one of the weakest rush records but 'time and motion' is a neat song

roll the bones is also pretty weak but i like 'dreamline' and 'ghost of a chance' is about as close as rush ever came to writing a love song which makes it kinda interesting

presto is definitely a cut above the other 90s-alt-rock-period rush records

cool and remote like dancing girls

For me it's a tie between Hemispheres, Moving Pictures and Caress Of Steel. Rush are one of my favourite bands but I've never felt any of their albums had an "all killer" track list.

I've got the 1989-2007 box set on my wishlist but not sure if I want to get it. Worried it's going to be just diminishing returns. I've heard everything from Fly By Night to Grace Under Pressure and I have a copy of Power Windows waiting.

oh yeah "force ten" is the best song ever

oh wait sorry i was thinking of "prime mover"

"Force Ten" IS the best song ever

the point of the journey is not to arrive

tough times!

Demand tough talk.

anything can happen *4 bar long bass riff*

"Time Stands Still" is great; "Turn the Page" and "Force Ten" are good. Otherwise, I never got into Hold Your Fire. A Show of Hands mostly contains all the 83-89 Rush that I need, and even there I usually skip "Mission".

despite there being a bunch of decent-to-good songs there, Hold Your Fire, Presto, and Roll the Bones is kind of a weak run of albums. I was very happy when Counterparts came out and they ditched that thin, trebly sound for more chunky rock.

That's interesting, because I was really (at the time) into HYF, Presto and RTB, and heard Cpunterparts as a concerted grunge bid. Of course, in retrospect it's pretty much a smart transition, and really sets the template for (slightly) heavier Rush from the '90s on.

Other than Clockwork Angels (which I have a giant conflict of interest about since I worked for their label when it came out), Counterparts is my favorite post-80s Rush album by far.

clockwork angels and vapor trails are both fantastic, the 90s records all sound like a mistake after hearing those

One Little Victory prob the best Rush opener since Show Don't Tell, for sure.

actually i like 'dreamline' a lot in that category but the rest of the album doesn't really follow up on it

I do like that by and large each Rush album has entered at least one song into the always happy to hear it canon.

Counterparts was definitely a nod to grunge, yet I think it holds up better than a lot of the grunge albums of the time.

"Dreamline" is indeed a great tune

Is "We're only at home when we're on the run" the last notable nerd-quotable Neil Peart line? Or maybe "it's not the heat it's the humanity?" I guess lots of people use that one.

Ha, listening to "Caress of Steel" and the coda of "The Necromancer" is totally Rush doing Springsteen.

Synth Rush all fuckin day today. Power Windows then Signals then Hold Your Fire.

Can anyone resist grinning at the minnow-wiggle bass statement at the beginning of "prime mover"?

Also, fyi, a spirit with a vision is a dream with a mission

Like Geddy's funky (but not slap-funk) turn in the '80s.

http://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/rush/images/books/guitar-player-04.1986/guitar-player-04.1986-1-s.jpg
http://toygunslinger.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Davy-Crockett.jpg

i really love the way Geddy sings the old songs like he clearly didn't know he'd be expected to sing them again 40 years later! the notes in "Anthem" are insane, and he's not even really falsettoing.

I mean I do think it's my least favorite era of him vocally because he really had a much richer tone in his mid-range and even those notes were often pretty high!

even though his voice is getting more warbly as he gets older, it's still a thrill to hear him belting it out. "Xanadu" also had some pretty badass vocal moments on this tour.

During that stretch of late 80s and 90s albums, he pretty much stopped reaching for those high notes both on their albums and in concert. I remember being disappointed when they just skipped the high vocal moments in "Freewill" and "Xanadu" on the Counterparts tour. So glad that he decided it was ok to reach for the skies again.

i was really surprised at the notes he got out! and the stuff he had to alter ("2112" and "Anthem") was jsut outright in the stratosphere

finally listening to Test for Echo and I really liked the first two songs out of the gate but maaaaaaaaaaaan, if crap like "The Color of Right" is gonna take over eesh.

ok I coulda really left that one unplayed. not horrible but just bland. though there are a few tracks I did like from it.

"Limbo" is kinda cool

Ha, that's funny, I finally gave that album a chance today, too, and think I stopped early as well. What's up with "Test for Echo?" It'd be one thing if this was the album after Neil's bad period, but this is the album before all that stuff happened.

presto has for me always stood out slightly from those around it, but i too wish it weren't so very trebly

so they've repudiated their repudiation of their eighties catalog by now, right? That documentary released a few years ago made it clear the band didn't want to talk about that period or at best saw it as a necessary but not aesthetically rewarding period. Clearly the fans who prefer '70s are starting to get outnumbered, so it wouldn't surprise me (nor is it a reflection on the band) that the guys (re)turn to the '80s material live thanks to cold calculation.

i thought it was mainly lifeson who was unhappy at having his axe (relatively) sidelined

"No one told ya not to learn keyboards man"

yet to my ears Lifeson still got excellent moments to shine -- and the terseness helped.

agreed

I prefer Permanent Waves - moving Pictures...when they were still prog but embracing synthetic and creating an unbeatable sound.

Followed by 70s a la Hemispheres.

Then the 80s stuff. Grace Under Pressure the best of the Signals - power Windows threesome.

I mean the synthetic shit was extremely creative so other than the meatheads I don't get people that write it off.

*embracing synths

*synth shit

The guitar stuff in the '80s was great, but yeah, the story goes that the a lot of the stuff was done - drums, synths, arrangements - before Alex got in there, so he had to find a way to fit in. Which is, of course, maybe one reason he's one of the rare guitarists equally good at rhythm and solos; the Andy Summers approach fills a lot of space.

By the way, it's those arrangements that get me, and I think it's one of Rush's most unheralded attributes. For a band often pegged as prog, they really only have a couple of prog albums. The rest mostly comprise weirdly dense pop songs, of a sort. But always impeccably put together. One might call Rush indulgent, but I'm not sure what anyone could point to as truly indulgent - solos are short and to the point - and beyond that, they have such an obvious sense of humor that it's hard to call them pretentious, too. Beyond Neil's lyrics, I guess, which can fall on the Sting side of things between the Dos Passos references.

"No one told ya not to learn keyboards man"

Doesn't he actually play some minor keyboard parts live? I seem to remember that from the 2010 show I saw.

I don't have a problem with the synths on those 80s records, but I can't get past the horribly thin, tinny drum sound. That's the only thing keeping me from really digging into those albums.

I dunno, I like the drums on HYF and PW just fine. If anything, his playing itself was more trebbly - more cymbals, more triggering. Later, more recent albums got back to low end drum rumble a bit, and away from the electronics.

Love this guy, btw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbWY7sum1Gs

jesus I really like HOld Your Fire. "Force Ten" is mesmerizing. shame they got so much blander after (though I kinda like Presto)

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

hahaha lol - sounds like a retarded pink floyd song

Actually, this is a pretty fascinating dissection of how much thought Peart puts into his parts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyVHimRng9A

I'm suddenly finding Side A of Presto incredibly affecting and consoling today and yesterday. Especially "The Pass" which made me cry a little at my desk yesterday.

ways to know whether you're in your mid-forties...

I had a quote from "The Pass" under my picture in my high school yearbook, good times!

Ways to know you're in your mid-forties or late teens

early forties, thank you very much!

I guess now I've heard all of their albums except the debut and Test for Echo.

― Hammer Smashed Bagels, Thursday, May 28, 2015 2:27 AM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Test For Echo would quite comfortably be one of my least favourite Rush albums. Some god-awful lyrics on that one!

put your message in a modem, and throw it in the cyber sea..

and all too soon a canine will be chasing cars in doggie heaven

that dog one is my actual least favorite rush song

ha ha, was just coming to post the exact same lyric

i heard test for echo once.

once...

I like some test for echo tracks despite lots of dopey lyrics. Driven, Totem, and Time and Motion are pretty solid.

i heard test for echo once.

once...

― demonic mnevice (Jon Lewis), Wednesday, June 3, 2015 6:56 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's enough to leave an impression!

glad there ended up being so much Hold Your Fire chat here, because I think that might be my answer (having heard everything between Moving Pictures and it over the last couple of days)

it's just too huge, the arrangements are too epic, everything is delivered from on high as heroes defeat evil universes, Turn The Page is the greatest song ever, etc etc

Grace Under Pressure, Power Windows, Hold Your Fire and Presto are probably Peart's peak as a lyricist.

I love Grace Under Pressure and Power Windows, but fairly meh on the other 2

The more the decades go by, the more I love Power Windows.

Mystic Rhythms especially. Probably their most overlooked single.

to me Signals seems to belong more to the run of albums after it than what came before

True

I would go all-in on super deluxe editions of Signals, Grace Under Pressure, Power Windows, and Hold Your Fire but AFAIK apart from that "Power Windows Demos" bootleg CD (which isn't as interesting as it seems) there's little in the way of extras outside of live shows. I don't think they ever worked in a way that generated lots of outtakes or alternate directions.

Well that run of albums is notable in that even though they were a multiplatinum smash and worldwide megastars, they just kept churning out an album pretty much every year! It's hard to think of another band who refused to rest on their laurels to such an extent. Such output seems to tell me they had a lot of clarity when they went into the studio, hence the lack of outtakes

to me Signals seems to belong more to the run of albums after it than what came before

― imago, Wednesday, August 16, 2023 3:44 PM (yesterday)

glad there ended up being so much Hold Your Fire chat here, because I think that might be my answer (having heard everything between Moving Pictures and it over the last couple of days)

― imago, Wednesday, August 16, 2023 3:12 PM (yesterday)

I appreciate how their first 3 live albums serve as lines of demarcation in their catalogue, like ending credit scenes from a cinematic entry in some grand trilogy. While I don't view "Different Stages" as sharing a similar role, it does serve as a nice in-joke to their whole "trilogies have 4 parts" ethos.

As for HYF, I learned that the key to appreciating it as a whole album (rather than a just a delivery system for the "Force Ten"/"Time Stand Still" opening salvo) is to view it as a prog-leaning New Age-adjacent record, like if Windham Hill let Michael Hedges or Alex DeGrassi create their own sub-label. The choir vocals/synths, calm strings, and empty space of "Mission", "Tai Shan", "Prime Mover", and "High Water" make a fairly enjoyable listen. If you can turn off the whole "Is this supposed to be Rush? Where's the distorted riffage and/or wild drum/bass interplay?" part of your brain - and besides, those *are* there, just in a very subordinate role to those other 3 elements listed above - it is damn near transcendent.

One other HYF point that someone made in a comment section from a surely-dead prog-rock blog that I wish I could find: "Open Secrets" might (ahem) secretly be a great "Invisible Touch"-era Genesis song, especially the chorus.

turns out the person why recommended me HYF was also busy doing a huge in-depth interview about it too :)

https://www.spin.com/2023/08/band-jury-fire-toolz-rush-hold-your-fire/

I remember reading something (no doubt linked to on this thread somewhere) about each Rush album evolution coming in pairs.

to me Signals seems to belong more to the run of albums after it than what came before

It felt like a huge departure from Moving Pictures, which in itself was a little bit removed from the albums immediately prior.

HEMISPHERES

i like their 1st album

y'know before they became libertarians

didja get my skrewdriver joke

ivy. OTM