The Rush appreciation thread

A fitting testament to an excellent album by one of the greatest bands ever. 

Hell yeah, Neil was a bedwetting progressive, just like me.  

Davesax1965 wrote: Rush were undoubtedly one of my favourite bands until 2112 "dedicated to the genius of Ayn Rand" came out. The right wing anti com'nist stuff put me - and a lot of my mates - off. I appreciated the musicianship but not the politics.  Moving Pictures was great, but after that, it becomes "not my kind of music" any more.

I’m guessing you never looked into the reason behind that Ayn Rand credit enough to figure out Rush are not at all in alignment with her politics? Neil put that there for a couple specific reasons: 1. because he really enjoyed her novels, and the whole band felt inspired by her idea of artistic freedom and not catering to what society would seem to want you to create, and 2. The plot of 2112 is highly reminiscent of the plot of her novelette Anthem, which Neil only came to realize when the album was nearly complete, so in order to avoid a plagiarism accusation, he gave her credit in the liner notes. If you read up on Rush’s and Neil’s politics, especially some years down the road when Neil had gotten past his Ayn Rand phase in his reading hobby, you’ll find that they are absolutely not aligned to her super right wing views. In fact Neil’s more humanitarian world view came out very clearly in a lot of his lyrics post Moving Pictures. You may not care for the music, but take a look at the lyrics to songs like Second Nature, Heresy, The Garden, and Nobody’s Hero. Neil wasn’t at all like Ayn Rand in his political views, he often wrote about wanting to help people who were less fortunate, and about the importance of human compassion and empathy. Ayn Rand forfeit those values in favor of pure independence. All Rush ever wanted was artistic independence.

I'm not gonna post all the stuff in the massive MP 40th Anniversary Box Set, but here are a couple. So glad I bought this, I kinda waffled back and forth about it originally. It is now sold out from Rush Backstage, maybe still available on Amazon or record stores but I've seen it on Discogs already for $400+ on secondary market.

jamessavik wrote: verslibre wrote: Sacro_Porgo wrote: jamessavik wrote: Rats! After putting all of my CDs and albums in a database, I discovered I'm missing A Farewell To Kings. That's embarrassing for an old skool Rush fan. Well that's their very best album! Only if you don't own Hemispheres and Permanent Waves.  FOUND IT! CD is still MIA, but I found my old vinyl of A Farewell to Kings. Think it rates a good play for a Thursday night.

verslibre wrote: Sacro_Porgo wrote: jamessavik wrote: Rats! After putting all of my CDs and albums in a database, I discovered I'm missing A Farewell To Kings. That's embarrassing for an old skool Rush fan. Well that's their very best album! Only if you don't own Hemispheres and Permanent Waves.

verslibre wrote: Sacro_Porgo wrote: jamessavik wrote: Rats!  After putting all of my CDs and albums in a database, I discovered I'm missing A Farewell To Kings. That's embarrassing for an old skool Rush fan. Well that's their very best album! Only if you don't own Hemispheres and Permanent Waves.

rushfan4 wrote: Have any of you checked out the Envy of None release?  I think that it is enjoyable enough, but if I didn't know Alex was playing guitar on it I wouldn't know that he was playing guitar on it.

verslibre wrote: Sacro_Porgo wrote: jamessavik wrote: Rats! After putting all of my CDs and albums in a database, I discovered I'm missing A Farewell To Kings. That's embarrassing for an old skool Rush fan. Well that's their very best album! Only if you don't own Hemispheres and Permanent Waves.

Sacro_Porgo wrote: jamessavik wrote: Rats! After putting all of my CDs and albums in a database, I discovered I'm missing A Farewell To Kings. That's embarrassing for an old skool Rush fan. Well that's their very best album!