Which Albums by Rush are real Prog Rock? And Why?

Prog is in their genes but is not all that they are.....As far as which albums I think everyone is on the same page.

Like Micky's first post

 

you'd have to include Caress in there as well, though. Even if you don't like it

 

I'd say 2112 to Hemispheres... Outside Natural Science and CameraEye, I don't hear much prog in their respective albums (Jacob being a boring crescendo based on a bolero and XYZ , which suffers from La Villa's existence))

I'd probably say from Fly By Night to Hold Your Fire, then Snakes And Arrows and Clockwork Angels.

I can't agree that Moving Pictures is their last prog album - Signals is stylistically very close. I think the only thing MP has the Signals doesn't have is a song over 10 minutes long. There's no way that a song like Losing It isn't prog.

As far as Caress of Steel to Hemispheres - that's certainly their Dungeons and Dragons phase, and certainly the overtly "prog" elements of their music - nerdy fantasy/sci-fi lyrics, extended songs with long instrumental sections, etc. - started to fade away after that, but they still kept a lot of subtle prog elements. Lots of time signature changes, a focus on creating instrumental interest, unusual chords and song structures, and most Rush albums starting from around Grace Under Pressure are concept albums - not rock operas with a storyline, mind you, but all based lyrically around a central concept.

miamiscot wrote: Easy: 2112 to Moving Pictures.

in fact..  dead air here. Was going to torture Raff with some DAC after my last post.. but CoS it is...  Raff owes you one Jim.

After a lifetime of appreciating the band, I can just say it....

The first three albums have everything you really need. 

Rush..  of course there are 'controverisal' albums. Rush fan es[ecially here doesn't like being told what others ears have long known...  very patchy prog group that really didn't hit their stride until they left prog (along with near everyone else in the late 70's) and got really popular by doing some really neat AOR albums and doing neat MTV videos.

no brainer in my opinion.  Fly by Night might be a bit iffy to some by to me it is not merely a transition from the Led Zep clone of the debut to the shear awesomeness of their 3rd. It was a prog album.. just not as in your face.  And the end.. most will agree.. especially those around these albums were coming out and saw the backlash....  Hemispheres.  Permanent Waves pure AOR bliss.... but they did lose many a fan who loved them in their prog incarnation..  to their credit..  they gained far more by leaving prog.  Much like Genesis whose real talent was doing pop songs.. not prog... Rush was doing high caliber AOR and not the cheesy* ( but admittedly so loveable ) prog they did. It wasn't great by any stretch of the imagination (other than a few isolated masterpieceds like By-Tor and The Necormancer) but the one thing you could say about prog Rush.. it was damn fun to listen to while doing bong hits and tried to mimic Geddy's shrieking and laughing at the stupidity of Peart's lyrics haha