The Rush appreciation thread

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Totally love Geddy's playing here, awesome bass lines! The production of this tour was killer as well.....Never more .

verslibre wrote: The Arrow instrumentals still make me think they should have done an album without vocals. This kicks so much ass! Rush fans would've lapped up fifty minutes of this kind of stuff.

I just received Hold Your Fire in the mail today. Recently I also received Power Windows and Presto. There's only one other Rush studio album I don't currently have and that one, Grace Under Pressure, is on the way (I had to order it from discogs). I've heard and owned all of these in the past (except for maybe HYF which I borrowed from my brother's friend but not sure if I ever owned it).  Anyway, HYF sounds good and maybe even better than I remembered it. 

^Lyrically, I think Rush reached their peak on PW and HYF. In fact I was never a big fan of "prime mover" but I think the lyrics go a long way to saving it. However, I can now honestly say that I don't think there are any weak songs on HYF not even "tai shan." Power Windows has some songs (actually same thing with HYF) that I initially thought were kind of weak (like maybe "emotion detector") but I think they have all grown on me. It's interesting how these albums still sound fresh all these years later. 

Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - May 03 2022 at 18:35

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: ^Lyrically, I think Rush reached their peak on PW and HYF. In fact I was never a big fan of "prime mover" but I think the lyrics go a long way to saving it. However, I can now honestly say that I don't think there are any weak songs on HYF not even "tai shan." Power Windows has some songs (actually same thing with HYF) that I initially thought were kind of weak (like maybe "emotion detector") but I think they have all grown on me. It's interesting how these albums still sound fresh all these years later.