A FAREWELL TO KINGS

A few days ago I was introducing a friend of mine to Rush. He said he liked most 70s music and especially Toto. So I decided to show him my favorite band (it is Rush as can be seen by a wall in my room which has all the Rush vinyl albums I own - currently 14 but I'm working on getting more). I showed him this album for two reasons: one, it is easily the most accessible Rush album, with their most well-known (and overplayed) song Closer to the Heart, and two, because, well, I consider it to be the pinnacle of Rush's musical career during the 70s (one of two albums).

This album has a good mixture of long and short songs. Side One has A Farewell to Kings the beautiful Xanadu with both Geddy and Alex playing double-necked guitars. It's a prog masterpiece based off the poem Kubla Khan. This song, like Cygnus X-1, shows how deep Peart was into fantasy and science fiction literature. Side Two has Cinderella Man (it's based off/inspired by the movie Mr. Deeds Goes To Town) and the aforementioned Cygnus X-1 which is only the beginning of a masterful song, as seen by the next album's opening track. These four tracks are my favorites off this album and are what I consider some of the best Rush songs.

Closer to the Heart and Madrigal are my least favorite songs off this album. I do not like Madrigal because I feel it does not reach the standard Rush had set at this time and just seems like a short half-hearted ballad that could have had more effort put into it, or rather taken off the album. My only reason for disliking Closer to the Heart is probably due to overexposure. I feel having 5 copies of a song is more than enough. It may be one of the best known Rush songs, but I am sick of hearing it and rarely play it, if ever.

Overall, this album rocks. It contains the awesome Xanadu and Cygnus X-1, but also contains the mediocre Madrigal. The good outweighs the bad on this album but I feel that Rush could have done better and so I will give this album 4/5 stars.