MOVING PICTURES

RUSH's Moving Pictures is the fourth installment in what I call the bands "Mid-Era Progressive" phase. These albums include: A Farewell to Kings (1977), Hemispheres (1978), Permanent Waves (1980), Moving Pictures (1981) and Exit Stage Left "Live" (1981)

Moving Pictures is Rush's most popular album among members of Prog Archives, most Rush fans, and even the general music listening public. Almost everybody knows this album. It contains some of the band's most well known songs that actually got air-play back in the day! It contains such classic songs as Tom Sawyer, Red Barchetta, and Limelight. But, don't make the mistake of thinking this album is just a bunch of radio-friendly pop tunes, quite the contrary. Moving Pictures is a very approachable modern progressive rock album disguised as an Adult Oriented Rock (AOR) album. It's got Rush's second, and probably most popular instrumental, YYZ, and the last of the long, extended-length rock tracks, The Camera Eye, coming in at almost 11 minutes. Most peoples criticism of the album is that it's too polished and overly commercialized. Is it commercial because it sold well? Maybe it sold so well because its just really good music. I put it right up in my personal top 5 of Rush albums, just behind A Farewell to Kings.