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Which Albums by Rush are real Prog Rock? And Why?

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GrafHaarschnitt View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote GrafHaarschnitt Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Which Albums by Rush are real Prog Rock? And Why?
    Posted: November 21 2018 at 11:46
Just wanna know your opinion. There are several controversial albums.


Edited by GrafHaarschnitt - November 21 2018 at 11:46
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micky View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote micky Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 21 2018 at 14:30
an opinion? Sure.. gots lots of those.

Rush..  of course there are 'controverisal' albums. Rush fan es[ecially here doesn't like being told what others ears have long known...  very patchy prog group that really didn't hit their stride until they left prog (along with near everyone else in the late 70's) and got really popular by doing some really neat AOR albums and doing neat MTV videos.

no brainer in my opinion.  Fly by Night might be a bit iffy to some by to me it is not merely a transition from the Led Zep clone of the debut to the shear awesomeness of their 3rd. It was a prog album.. just not as in your face.  And the end.. most will agree.. especially those around these albums were coming out and saw the backlash....  Hemispheres.  Permanent Waves pure AOR bliss.... but they did lose many a fan who loved them in their prog incarnation..  to their credit..  they gained far more by leaving prog.  Much like Genesis whose real talent was doing pop songs.. not prog... Rush was doing high caliber AOR and not the cheesy* ( but admittedly so loveable Heart) prog they did. It wasn't great by any stretch of the imagination (other than a few isolated masterpieceds like By-Tor and The Necormancer) but the one thing you could say about prog Rush.. it was damn fun to listen to while doing bong hits and tried to mimic Geddy's shrieking and laughing at the stupidity of Peart's lyrics haha
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote SteveG Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 21 2018 at 14:33
^ Seconded more or less. Much less but seconded.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Finnforest Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 21 2018 at 14:52
After a lifetime of appreciating the band, I can just say it....

The first three albums have everything you really need. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote miamiscot Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 21 2018 at 14:54
Easy: 2112 to Moving Pictures.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote micky Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 21 2018 at 14:54
^ big hell yeah to that.. of course others were good.. but those 3 itch the Rush scratch...

in fact..  dead air here. Was going to torture Raff with some DAC after my last post.. but CoS it is...  Raff owes you one Jim.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Cristi Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 21 2018 at 15:40
Originally posted by micky micky wrote:

^ big hell yeah to that.. of course others were good.. but those 3 itch the Rush scratch...

in fact..  dead air here. Was going to torture Raff with some DAC after my last post.. but CoS it is...  Raff owes you one Jim.

what's "DAC"? I'm trying to figure it out...Confused
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote verslibre Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 21 2018 at 16:58
Originally posted by miamiscot miamiscot wrote:

Easy: 2112 to Moving Pictures.

Boom. Done. CoS was the prelude, Signals was the postlude. But that's indeed their prog "era."
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote verslibre Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 21 2018 at 16:59
Originally posted by micky micky wrote:

no brainer in my opinion.  Fly by Night might be a bit iffy to some by to me it is not merely a transition from the Led Zep clone of the debut to the shear awesomeness of their 3rd. It was a prog album.. just not as in your face.  And the end.. most will agree..

Not this Rush fan. FBN was them cutting back on the runaway mimicry, but that's about it. Till the next album! Wink
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote ForestFriend Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 21 2018 at 17:16
I'd probably say from Fly By Night to Hold Your Fire, then Snakes And Arrows and Clockwork Angels.

I can't agree that Moving Pictures is their last prog album - Signals is stylistically very close. I think the only thing MP has the Signals doesn't have is a song over 10 minutes long. There's no way that a song like Losing It isn't prog.

As far as Caress of Steel to Hemispheres - that's certainly their Dungeons and Dragons phase, and certainly the overtly "prog" elements of their music - nerdy fantasy/sci-fi lyrics, extended songs with long instrumental sections, etc. - started to fade away after that, but they still kept a lot of subtle prog elements. Lots of time signature changes, a focus on creating instrumental interest, unusual chords and song structures, and most Rush albums starting from around Grace Under Pressure are concept albums - not rock operas with a storyline, mind you, but all based lyrically around a central concept.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Rednight Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 21 2018 at 18:18
This is too easy: A Farewell to Kings and Hemispheres. The trio threw away all the trappings of what they thought was typical prog and came up with some doozies that actually was the real thing. Then they moved on, sadly.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Sean Trane Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 22 2018 at 01:55
Like Micky's first postSmile
Originally posted by miamiscot miamiscot wrote:

Easy: 2112 to Moving Pictures.
 
you'd have to include Caress in there as well, though. Even if you don't like it
 
I'd say 2112 to Hemispheres... Outside Natural Science and CameraEye, I don't hear much prog in their respective albums (Jacob being a boring crescendo based on a bolero and XYZ , which suffers from La Villa's existence))
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Blacksword Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 22 2018 at 03:04
A Farewell to Kings and Hemispheres are the only two real prog albums by Rush IMO. You could argue a case for 2112, I guess. Hemipshers is my favourite Rush album, but close behind would be Permeneant Waves and Moving Pictures which are kind of prog related.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Kotro Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 22 2018 at 04:13
Not an easy question to answer. Fly by Night to Hemispheres period for me is "prog"(-ish, in the case of Fly by Night), but not very progressive, while the Permanent Waves to Hold Your Fire period (escpecially from Signals on) is not very "prog", but much more progressive to my ears. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote someone_else Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 22 2018 at 12:28
I'd say from Caress of Steel to Signals. With CoS they started to make 10+ minute songs and after Signals there were hardly any odd time signatures.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Catcher10 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 22 2018 at 13:33
As a band I am glad they did not stick to "prog rock", they actually progressed into other music styles. And as a listener/fan you have to not be stuck in the "prog" mentality to understand Rush's music as well as say Genesis.

Prog is in their genes but is not all that they are.....As far as which albums I think everyone is on the same page.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote moshkito Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 22 2018 at 15:23
Hi,

Nice band, but I do NOT listen to them for "prog" or "progressive". I listen to them because it is outstanding material and very well defined and put together.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Squonk19 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 22 2018 at 16:33
If you plotted their perceived 'progginess' as a histogram, it would very much follow the classic, 'normal distribution' bell-shaped curve for much of their career. By-Tor' got things going on Fly By Night, and that style was built upon with Caress of Steel. The 2112 suite brought it up a notch more, followed by the more intricate and diverse A Farewell to Kings - Xanadu the obvious example. The wonderful Hemispheres was their prog peak for me, especially Side 1 and La Villa Strangiato. Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures maintained some of that, but by Signals that prog ambience was starting to fade, with maybe only Subdivisions providing an echo of those earlier days. After that, the style changed significantly and prog took a back seat, even though there were still gems to be found.

Snakes and Arrows and Clockwork Angels did provide a return to aspects of prog, as a coda to their career, although more on particular tracks than the whole album.

I'll concur with earlier comments regarding Rush not being considered 'prog' by many of us at the time we were discovering them, compared to the likes of the Big Six, and only retrospectively did that prog link show more. They were a complex and intelligent, long-format rock trio that countered the more traditional rock bands of the time, and they were a refreshing change to the rather tired styles of many classic rock bands in the late 70s for many of us.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote AFlowerKingCrimson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 22 2018 at 21:55
In my opinion I would say the following:

Caress of Steel
2112 (side 1 especially with side two being more art rock/hard rock)
A Farewell to Kings
Hemispheres
Permanent Waves
Moving Pictures

Signals has pretty strong prog tendencies too and the other albums from the rest of the eighties do to some degree also(ok, maybe not so much Presto) but I don't feel they are as full on prog as the ones I listed above.


Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - June 08 2020 at 14:30
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote AFlowerKingCrimson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 22 2018 at 21:58
Originally posted by someone_else someone_else wrote:

I'd say from Caress of Steel to Signals. With CoS they started to make 10+ minute songs and after Signals there were hardly any odd time signatures.

Yep. This works for me even though signals seems to have strong new wave tendencies as well.
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