Rush: Classic or Dud?

Pretty psyched for June 12th!

I reviewed Clockwork Angels at MSN today...

So excited to hear this! Great write-up.

Great review!

I'm really loving the title track and Headlong Flight right now, can't wait to hear the rest

"Spirit of Radio" came on yesterday, and for a split second it struck me how much more irrationally sad I'll be when one of these guys vs. when any number of living legends I love dies.

That review and all the word I'm hearing from others wh have heard it have me amped. Next week, right?

That is certainly one of the band's least ambitious album covers.

they haven't had a good album cover in sooooo long :(

wait except that covers EP was a kinda decent winterland poster knockoff type thing

When Rush met Pete.

Around that time I had a high-school science teacher who was exasperated by my constant finger-tapping on my desk. When I said I couldn’t help it, he said, “What are you—some kind of retard?”

Seriously.

He sentenced me to a detention in which I would have to sit and tap on a desk for one hour. I played Tommy from memory; the teacher had to leave the room.

I didn't realize until just now that 2112 is based on the retarded philosophy of Ayn Rand.

peart's been working in randian stuff for years, iirc

never liked rush, but now i hate rush

Rush hasn't been Rand_y in 35 years, dudes.

But don't let that stop you from enjoying the haterade.

in roadshow with drums, he doesn't mention rand at all, but peart talks about how some of his roadies and bus drivers watch fox news, and he goes off on a big rant about fox news and george w bush (who was prez when the book was written)

so it's not like dude is a super hard righty or something

I like peart just fine, I always thought the Rand stuff was a thing that everyone knew

I don't think you need to be a right winger to like Randian philosophy, but I do think you need to cultivate a certain level of abject ignorance about the world to think it's a good philosophy, and that instituting it will solve more problems than it will create.

well who knows? dudes tastes might have changed in, you know NEARLY 40 YEARS

Peart has always called his politics something like liberal libertarianism. Which is basically, you know, the Canadian/English system of gov. There is a safety net, health care, socially liberal laws, that sort of thing. Hardly conservative. But again, you doofuses, "2112" was 35 years ago. Dude was 25. The album is about a future where art is illegal, and a guy discovers a guitar, which sparks a rebellion. The people win. There's your Rand for you. As I'm sure I've noted repeatedly on this thread, he soon moves on to John Dos Passos. Guy reads a lot of books.

I heard this as anti-Bush song: http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858660806/ . The band has recorded at least one environmentalist song that I can think of.

In this DVD, Peart discusses the motivation behind 2112. After the commercial failure of Caress of Steel, there was a great deal of pressure from the record company to make a more accessible album, which he saw as an "injustice" since he was a "child of the 60s". Peart had just been reading Rand and felt that this pressure on him (the creative individual) from the corporation (the 'faceless mass') was equivalent to what Rand was depicting, which suggests that his reading of Rand was not very informed by political context. He states himself: "I was not thinking about politics. I was not thinking about global oppression. I was thinking 'these people are messing with me!'" Lee stresses that what interested the band was the emphasis on creative and artistic freedom in Rand. (As the son of Holocaust survivors, he was offended when the NME started associating Rush with extreme right views.)

For some context, btw, this was the leader of the more right-wing party in Canada in 1976: not exactly a conservative by US standards, particularly when you consider his work later on foreign affairs.

"by present-day US standards"

(Still, I would never describe our system of government as liberal libertarianism [or "left-wing libertarianism", which is the term Wikipedia attributes to Peart]!)

Well, it is liberal when you consider all the things people take for granted, from education to civil liberties (short freedom of speech, the one front where the US rules) to health care, high taxes, drug laws, etc. (Relatively speaking, by US standards). There are liberals and conservatives, and right wingers and left wingers, but the above is sort of the system within which people operate. Right?

Rand is a huge political boogeywoman in 2012, but back in 1974 I'd wager she was nearly as widely read but hardly as affiliated with the right-wing. And perhaps taken more seriously, too.

Well yeah, it's the "libertarianism" part of it that threw me.

Well, I think that's why he appends the "left-wing" part to it. To differentiate it from the strident, tea party sort of asshole libertarianism.

OK, right. I guess "left-wing libertarianism" always makes me think of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_Socialism . What you said probably makes more sense as far as Peart's views are concerned.

Great review that only further whets my anticipation Adrien!

But psst--it's Kevin J Anderson, not Robert ;)

I know. Rush nerd alert!

Ps - to Rand haters--I sincerely hope you don't listen to U2 as they reference the bible or Nick Cave when he sings about Milton. Let's keep literature & philosophy out of rock! Sheesh.

i remember sometime in the early 80s before going into a rush concert at msg and there were some rand devotees (don't really remember the specific group) handing out leaflets on the street hoping to recruit some new members.

Goddamned parking lot Ayn Rand bootleggers!

Thanks Nate! Fix made.

Bought the new album this evening.

I'm surprised at how different the album versions of Caravan and BU2B are from the single. I didn't realize these would be completely re-recorded.

"The band has recorded at least one environmentalist song that I can think of"

The Trees? that always struck me as an anti-union or anti-communism song.

anyway I still like rush, although I always like sissy 80's rush more than anything else. pictures through hold your fire, and particularly Grace and Power Windows. I'm excited about the new record though.

The Trees is about Quebecois separatists, dude. I like the Pictures (well, Waves) through Hold Your Fire span best, too.

I think Red Tide might be an environmentalist song

Red Tide totally is. I'm sure the band has at least one or two others, too.

Huh, wtf?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EUmbOogyg4

I was thinking of "Natural Science", definitely not "The Trees". Is there any quote to suggest that "The Trees" is about Quebec separatism? Because I don't get that from the lyrics at all otherwise. Anti-communist/collectivist sounds nearer the mark to me.

Dunno. Seem to recall coming across that at some point years ago. Meanwhile, in Rolling Stone:

This is somewhat random, but you were interested in the writings of Ayn Rand decades ago. Do her words still speak to you?

Oh, no. That was 40 years ago. But it was important to me at the time in a transition of finding myself and having faith that what I believed was worthwhile. I had come up with that moral attitude about music, and then in my late teens I moved to England to seek fame and fortune and all that, and I was kind of stunned by the cynicism and the factory-like atmosphere of the music world over there, and it shook me. I'm thinking, "Am I wrong? Am I stupid and naïve? This is the way that everybody does everything and, had I better get with the program?"

For me, it was an affirmation that it's all right to totally believe in something and live for it and not compromise. It was a simple as that. On that 2112 album, again, I was in my early twenties. I was a kid. Now I call myself a bleeding heart libertarian. Because I do believe in the principles of Libertarianism as an ideal – because I'm an idealist. Paul Theroux's definition of a cynic is a disappointed idealist. So as you go through past your twenties, your idealism is going to be disappointed many many times. And so, I've brought my view and also – I've just realized this – Libertarianism as I understood it was very good and pure and we're all going to be successful and generous to the less fortunate and it was, to me, not dark or cynical. But then I soon saw, of course, the way that it gets twisted by the flaws of humanity. And that's when I evolve now into . . . a bleeding heart Libertarian. That'll do.

Cool thanks for posting that

Another nice bit:

I feel like Rush has gotten more attention in the past few years than any time I can remember. How do you feel about that? Does it feel like vindication? Do you care at all?
It is a vindication. I'm ambivalent, personally. Too much attention and hoopla doesn't agree with my temperament. I'm more introverted and I like to be an observer, so I'm ambivalent about that part, but it is a great vindication . . . and for our fans. Because as much as we're been vilified over the years, they were, too. It was always like, "Oh, what do you know? You're a Rush fan." You could definitely hear that in the schoolyard.

Honestly, it wouldn't make our day any sweeter or not, but for the whole spirit of Rush – for our fans and everything – you chose the right word. It's a vindication. We've been doing what we think is right this whole time . . . and that's part of it too. There's a bit of personal pride there, too. It's self-evident that we're hardly calculating and commercial with our music, but we've really tried to do everything the right way, or what I perceive to be the right way. It's kind of a vindication of that principle too. People can look at us and see that you can do things your way and still succeed.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/q-a-neil-peart-on-rushs-new-lp-and-being-a-bleeding-heart-libertarian-20120612

pretty good album, certainly the first rush album since Counterparts that I've listened to a lot.

so is PolioPolice still butthurt that his villains aren't reading Alan Greenspan tweets

Wow:
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/entertainment/music/clockwork-angels-by-rush-tops-hmv-canada-cd-sales-chart-159082445.html

Not surprised they topped the Canadian charts. If they top the US charts I'll be surprised.

Yeah, and it's just one chain (they don't seem to turn up on this Soundscan chart: http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/Charts/ALBUMS.html), but still, it's Rush in 2012!

(Listening on Youtube. It's sounding pretty good. The title track is a standout so far imo. Someone pointed out that the clock on the cover is set to 21:12.)

OK, the Soundscan chart is for the week ending on the 13th. The album was only released on the 12th.

It's a solid album. Not sure if it's great yet, but a few listens in it's good to very good.

At No. 2 on the Billboard 200, rock band Rush clocks its best sales week in 10 years as "Clockwork Angels" debuts with 103,000. The group last sold more when 2002's "Vapor Trails" bowed at No. 6 with 110,000. "Clockwork Angels" is Rush's second album to hit No. 2 following 1993's "Counterparts." A No. 1 album continues to elude the act.