MOVING PICTURES

This is the album that made me discovered Rush last year! My cousin, when I told him to make me listen to something about Rush he indicated just this Moving Pictures. He talked to me about this as their masterpiece. And Moving pictures has been the beginning of my passion for Rush. I don't know exactly if it is their absolute masterpiece, but I love this album and I love all its 7 songs. It is the album of the transition from seventies prog-rock and eighties classic rock with strong electronic influences. We could define this album as a halfway between these genres. It's still influenced by the structures of progressive rock but it contains a lot of elements coming from British new wave, with a wider use of keyboards and synthesizers (that will be protagonists in the next period, starting from the next album Signals, another masterpiece).

It's very hard for me tell what's the best song in this album. I think all songs are little masterpieces that unite and form a masterpiece.

Tom Sawyer is a good rock song with excellent elettronic sounds and synth riffs. Red Barchetta is a very happy song, somebody talks about it as a good on the road song and maybe it's true, thanks to the good Neil Peart's drumming. But we have really to spend more words about the instrumental YYZ: based on the morse code translation of the title, it shows all the technical abilities of this three Canadian musicians, it's still considered one of the best instrumental songs in the history of rock (but we have to give the highest place on the throne to La Villa Strangiato, included in Hemispheres) and will be an important source of inspiration for the musicians of tomorrow, progressive or not. For example Dream Theater were surely inspirated by YYZ when they were writing their Ytse Jam on their first album When Dream And Day Unite and, inspirating themselves by Neil Peart they used the morse translation to pronunce the expression Eat my ass and balls in In The Name Of Dog, contained in Train Of Thought. Lime Light is a easy rock song, with a good Lifeson's solo when The Camera Eye confirms their progressive vein with its 11 minutes duration. The intro with hard synthesizers is maybe one of the best introductions in their carreer but the song doesn't forget the 80s rock influence present on this album. Witch Hunt is another song where synthesizers play an important role and Vital Signs is considered a prelude to the next period of Rush discography. In fact, the song has got strong reggae influences, typical of 80s rock, and powerful electronic sounds.