2112

"2112" was more than an album; for pot-smoking male adolescents it was a rite of passage. To them, the title track was a fulfillment of their rock & roll fantasies: toppling a totalitarian future-world with the power of music. PEART's lyrics were carefully crafted to reference the listener's likely state of mind (notably on "Oracle: The Dream" and "Soliloquy"), and written for two voices (rendered by GEDDY LEE in a way that recalls "Jesus Christ Superstar") as if it were a play. And while it was a dramatic improvement over previous albums, musically the band still struggled with the epic format. The musical themes are incestuous from part to part, little time is found for flashes of instrumental brilliance, the end seems abruptly tacked on, and references to earlier storytellers (THE WHO, ELP) show a band slightly out of their depth. The rest of the album returns to song format, including a paean to pot ("A Passage To Bangkok") that would have fit on "Physical Graffiti", "The Twilight Zone" (about the TV series of all things) and an impassioned manifesto on "Something For Nothing." If you're looking for concrete evidence on "2112" that makes a case for greatness, you won't find it. The appeal of this album is that so many fans listened to this album when they were young, when they were high, and have listened to it often since then. Otherwise, except for the thematic shift from fantasy to science fiction, there's nothing on "2112" that wasn't already present on "Caress of Steel" and "Fly By Night". Of interest, the band does experiment with some new sounds, including the opening synthesizer section on "Introduction", and the ever-popular Mellotron on "Tears" (with Lee providing very Rutherfordian accompaniment on bass).

This is the culmination of the band's first phase, a period marked by music that had yet to break free from the pull of past influences (GENESIS, LED ZEPPELIN, THE WHO et al). In my opinion, "2112"'s is a subjective greatness, a first crush where adolescent emotions walked on a new moon, breathed the air, and found it good.