COUNTERPARTS

By 1993, at least in the US, there was very little room for art-rock or art-pop on the Billboard singles chart, which had become a much better barometer of popularity than it had ever been. This wasn't simply the result of the music press pushing Nirvana and Dr. Dre on an unsuspecting audience; the tastes of the general public had changed. Listeners wanted Nirvana and Dr. Dre.

At the same time, an explosion of new bands meant more competition on the album charts, creating an opening for established acts (among those who hit #1 on the Top 200 albums chart were Barbra Streisand, Eric Clapton, Aerosmith, and Billy Joel). So Rush was able to hit #2 with Counterparts without a hit pop single. That said, they had three big rock-airplay songs, with "Stick it Out" hitting #1, "Nobody's Hero" #3, and "Cold Fire" #2. "Animate" hit #35. But accordingly, these songs, and Counterparts in general are of the album-oriented rock or "classic-rock" genre, as opposed to the poppier fare of the albums preceding Roll the Bones. However, while Counterparts rocks harder than Rush's synthesizer-heavy 1980s albums, it is no more progressive than, say, Signals or Grace Under Pressure.

As it turns out, Rush was better at creating the art-pop of Signals and Hold Your Fire than the AOR of the Pearl Jam / Stone Temple Pilots era such as that on Counterparts.

I think that it's technically incorrect to say that Counterparts represents a return to the glory days of Rush. It is a return to the days when Rush used synthesizers sparingly and electric guitars heavily. But before the 1990s, and especially prior to 1993, Rush hadn't specialized in slick, 5-minute hard-rock numbers. Rush, their 1974 debut, came closest to this, but less than a year later, in 1975, Rush released the semi-prog Fly By Night, and that September, Caress of Steel removed any doubts that Rush was a high-concept, progressive band. Although they received airplay, it was mainly for softer numbers on pop radio, or longer pieces on rock radio.

Anyway, as undeniably successful as Counterparts was, in retrospect we see a band playing more to its customers' interests than to its muse - - and in any case not playing to its strengths. Counterparts sounds like Rush playing somebody else's songs. The oddness, risk-taking, and adventure are largely gone. The only real exceptions are in the lyrics. "Nobody's Hero" deals with AIDS, which was unusual at the time (but not so controversial that it wasn't a hit on the notoriously conservative AOR stations of the time - - and by "conservative" I mean resistant to change). More daring, although not audaciously so, is the arguably feminist "Cold Fire." That song, and the instrumental "Leave That Thing Alone" are the highlights here, but unfortunately that's not saying much.

Counterparts is not the dismal failure I originally considered it back in 1993 or 1994. None of the songs are terrible, but that's probably because Rush decided to play it safe. I wonder if the perceived blowback from the rap on the title song of their previous album, Roll the Bones, was enough to convince them of the wisdom of such a move.