I have that Zebra album as well! A lot of good tracks, and yes, you can hear the Rush influence for sure.
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The Rush Pendulum Has Swung Too Far
- Thread starter Altitude
- Start date
Great... According to Alex they want to play rarer stuff. Maybe they'll play some of the '70's material Geddy can't even get close to singing anymore...
That'll be fun....
I absolutely agree and was going to mention this, too!
And to the 'Geddy's voice then / now' subject: I got given the 'Time Machine - Live In Cleveland 2011' CD for Xmas that same year; Musically absolutely awesome, as always. But man, do I find it strenuous to listen to Geddy constantly doing that 'Simon Le Bon whine'!! (Which obviously helps him hit those higher notes, especially in the older songs)
I'm glad the RUSH pendulum is still swinging. No complaints. Would you have them drop all of their songs a half-step?
I have to say, I'm a Rush fan no matter what! Every song they write can't be hit with every fan. Personally, I am awed by their staying power. 40+ years is an amazing career, no matter how you slice it. And as a bass player, Geddy is the man! No debate there.
Late to the thread, but I, too, am not a fan of CA. And I want to be soo bad. But it just seems to modern to me. Modern tone, modern arrangement, and that just isn't rush to me. I know that the guys' taste will change as modern music does, but I feel like they need to get back to basics. Stuff like Between Sun and Moon or even Superconductor. Something that a listener can latch onto. Everything on CA i said, "well that must have been fun to write" but I just wasn't feeling it as a listener. My favorite era is GUP to HYF, and I realize that 80s vibe isn't going anywhere today, but even something like the Enemy Within would be cool from them. I just feel like everything is too dense on CA, like its not the powerhouse 3 piece rush is known to be. So yeah, thats my view on the matter.
I want to hear a present live version of the enemy within. The most recent one was from the GUP tour.
Gawd and bring out the fender precision and the ricky!!!
Gawd and bring out the fender precision and the ricky!!!
Wow. I think it's 180 degrees the other way. Caravan, BU2B, The Anarchist, Seven Cities of Gold, Headlong Flight -- all those songs from CA are about as powerhouse three-piece rock as you can get.
The albums you say are your favorites - Grace Under Pressure through Hold Your Fire -- are slathered in synths, with thin-sounding bass guitar and Alex reduced to a spectator. That era is as far from powerhouse three-piece as Rush ever got. They found their power-trio mojo again on Counterparts.
I have my opinions of their 'weaker' material from the 80's and after, but in all I am happy they're still alive and making good music, no matter how far removed their music may be from what I consider their peak era (first decade).
And we can't deny how far reaching their music is, whether we like it all or just some of it.
Each week I get to witness firsthand how deep and generational their musical influence is; I get to sit upstairs with a big smile when my teenage son is practicing drums in the basement, kicking out a tight Natural Science, followed by YYZ, Tom Sawyer, The Spirit of Radio and then into La Villa Strangiato....
And we can't deny how far reaching their music is, whether we like it all or just some of it.
Each week I get to witness firsthand how deep and generational their musical influence is; I get to sit upstairs with a big smile when my teenage son is practicing drums in the basement, kicking out a tight Natural Science, followed by YYZ, Tom Sawyer, The Spirit of Radio and then into La Villa Strangiato....
If my son or daughter ever starts listening to the crap we have today, I will literally lock them in their room with nothing but Rush albums and a CD player...or some futuristic music player and force them to listen to every single album start to finish.
No joke. My parents were raised in a classical music environment which eventually paved the way for me to be introduced to violin, then bass, which the led me to Rush. Not gonna break that tradition.
No joke. My parents were raised in a classical music environment which eventually paved the way for me to be introduced to violin, then bass, which the led me to Rush. Not gonna break that tradition.
I think the music of the classic Rush era (everything up to the Signals album) is what has made them living legends . After that not so much , lots of good stuff for sure but not on the level of the 73 - 82 era. Fortunately they have toured all through the years . Many who were not around in the 70s can still experience those classics live . Rush are like Brahams or Gershwin . People will always listen to this music after we are all gone .
I got into Rush during Farewell to Kings and saw them first on the Hemispheres tour. After Moving Pictures I jumped ship and, except for a couple of songs since then, haven't lined ANYTHING since. To me they're a classic prog band if the 70s who, like other prog bands, collapsed in the early 80s.
Well, to you, I guess. Since Moving Pictures, Rush has released 7 albums certified Platinum in the US, Canada, or both, and 9 others certified Gold. The Wikipedia article didn't have numbers on the very recent live record.
If that's a collapse, I can only hope for as much in my own career.
I'm pretty sure he meant musically, not commercially. Several progressive rock bands of the 70's (e.g., Yes, Genesis) enjoyed tremendous commercial success in the 80's, but there was a significant musical departure from what they had previously done.
FWIW - Prog rock success, for those of us who love it, write it and play it, is as far removed from album sales as possible. Generally, prog bands who sell well (like Yes did starting with 90125, or Genesis post-Duke) do so by sounding, well, highly un-prog. Not necessarily bad, but just not prog. In the case of Rush, Genesis and Yes, to me, it went epically bad (making them very UNsuccessful to my ears and tastes).
I'm glad artists sell records, go gold and platinum and multi-platinum, but that's not why I personally consider a band a success or not, and certainly has NO bearing whether or not I listen/play or otherwise support them.
I don't disagree, but I'd point out that Yes and Genesis both moved towards the radio-friendly 3.5 minute song format that the 80s brought back. Rush never did that - they continued to do their own thing, different though it was from what they had done before - and had at least as much commercial success. I guess there weren't any side-long concept songs, but the music was still very differentiated.
They're still doing that now, too - although I'm not a complete fan of all the ingredients and certainly not the production approach.
+10,000
Clockwork Angels is their best album since Moving Pictures IMHO. Back to the power days with very little keys. I've been listening to this album damn near every day since last summer.
The music is good. The production ruins it, to my ears anyway. I miss a little keyboard in my Rush, though.+10,000
Clockwork Angels is their best album since Moving Pictures IMHO. Back to the power days with very little keys. I've been listening to this album damn near every day since last summer.
