Rush: Classic or Dud?

I think I've said it here before but I'm another Rush convert after seeing them live two years ago - they put on a hell of a show, even if it does creep into Spinal Tap-ism at times.

I still haven't delved much into the catalogue beyond Moving Pictures (recommended by a friend) but they've got a gazillion albums and I've got a lifetime to hear them so I'm in no rush. No pun intended.

Hah, I know tons of people who will state that they hate Rush with a straight face, to this day! This is a widely popular stance, like hating the Grateful Dead. I mean, I love Rush, and get where you are coming from, but this is no surprise at all.

Also, I can understand why people do not like Rob's deal at all, and more power to you, but calling him a "scumbag hack" is pretty rich. If this is a professional thing only then cool I guess, whatever works for you is fine, but I just want to personally state that Rob is one of the nicest people I have met in "the industry" (for lack of a better term). Very far from anyone I would call "a scumbag", but whatever, I have a feeling that this all about his opinions/writing style and nothing to do with him as a person.

I have a feeling that this all about his opinions/writing style and nothing to do with him as a person.

We've never met, so yeah, 100%.

Cool man, fire away. Not trying to crusade here at all.

My wife hates Rush. Cannot stand Geddy's voice.

Plenty of people hate Rush, even the eighties stuff.

I think they hate Geddy's voice, and if that alone is enough to make them "hate" Rush - fair enough - then they sure haven't bothered to listen to the music.

Rob Sheffield is indeed one of the nicest people in the world. But I don't like his writing, and while he is no scumbag, he is something of a hack. Which is also fair enough, because the only way to make a living as a music writer these days is to hack away.

I hate Geddy's voice, but I hate post-Signals earnest mid-rangy Geddy; I love screechy Geddy.

In any case, Rush hate is pretty on the down-low, because unlike the Dead (for example) there's very little cultural creep on Rush's part. At worst they're a punchline, at best, well, world't biggest cult band. That isn't the Dead. But the Dead hate I believe comes as much from its cultural connotations and traits as much as the music, which is in a lot of ways the anti-Rush: the albums are pretty worthless, but live is where the music happens. Rush is great live, but the band's stock in trade is replicating the perfect arrangements of the albums. Bar a goof-reggae "Working Man" or two. And Rush fans are an innocuous bunch who only make a target because they like Rush - nerds! - not because of how they dress, or what they drive, or being trustafarians or dirty hippies or whatever.

xpost Now, see, I think you're an outlier! Just as some still connect Rush to Rand based on that one aspect of that one album, I think Rush for a lot of people means Geddy's early years screech (similarly c. "2112"). But every aspect of the band mellows out after the '70s without, imo, a drop in quality. Just a shift.

Yeah, I tried listening to Counterparts, but the layered Geddy harmonies were an insurmountable hurdle. Which is too bad, because I kinda liked what I heard otherwise.

i really don't see how they are the most hated band ever

listened to Clockwork Angels again yesterday, like it even more now than when it came out

however - can ANYONE understand how those songs fit into the "story"...even by loose concept album standards, idgi

tbh, sheffield's thing seems a bit dated to Gen X...i think ppl of our generation there was still more a reaction against some aspects of classic rock (look at almost any early part of a classic rock thread on ILM for example)...because of what i do, i work with lots of ppl 10 yrs younger than me (or younger) and i feel like they just LIKE classic rock, even if it's not what they listen to all the time, they respect it just as "quality music" and like the big hits and the song from Guitar Hero and Rock Band...so I think he's describing stuff that doesn't exist anymore...

if you asked a lot of them what "shit music" was it would be Skrillex probably or like Creed or ICP or something

Yeah, Gen X rebelled against classic rock by, um, listening to Pearl Jam and Soundgarden.

Is it self-parody if I wish Clockwork Angels broke out of 4/4 a little more?

Yeah, Gen X rebelled against classic rock by, um, listening to Pearl Jam and Soundgarden.

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Friday, August 9, 2013 11:24 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i know it was dumb but again read all the classic rock threads on ILM, there was a certain mentality

My embarrassing story of 'how I got into Rush' was having to sing Limelight on Rockband and going 'wow this song is really awesome' and then I wanted to listen to them all the time.

I had always liked 2112/the Temples of Syrinx song but none of their songs had ever really drew me in.

Honestly? I think part of it is the weird timing changes in the songs made me have towork a bit harder to like them and I wasn't ever really patient enough to try til I was older.

M@tt: no, I totally remember.

i think the change is maybe due to the fact that it's not your parent's music, it's your grandparent's music....not necessarily something to rebel against, just a part of the cultural landscape, a relic of a time when things were cooler than they are now

trying to picture my grandma listening to Rush. failing.

Haha all I can think of is Geddy's mom in "Beyond the Lighted Stage" saying "It wasn't my kind of music...Perry Como was my kind of music"

Yeah, my second cousin who was 15 for Moving Pictures and played Rush and Police covers in high school just had his first kid a couple of years ago. Mark S's theory that rock movements are about rebelling against your older brother as opposed to your parents is probably OTM.

I think it is true that younger generations who didn't read alternative music mags from late 70s to the 90s go in for classic rock easier.

Johnny Marr hates Rush and it makes me like him slightly less.

doesn't he like the Jam or some shit

I doubt Johnny Marr has given Rush enough thought to provide a valuable opinion. My guess would be he, like many, use Rush as a sort of dismissive shorthand while what they probably mean to vocally "hate" is Yes.

one of the big revelations of the news Smiths book was that Johnny Marr was a huge Tom Petty fan

i actually don't totally see Rush as a "prog band" proper

I don't consider Rush a prog band at all. No more than Zeppelin, really.

Or the Police.

i guess hemispheres is as close as they got to prog proper....but yeah an expansive musically adventerous hard rock band IMO

Rush isn't a prog band? You should tell that to all the prog fans who feel otherwise. Or to the band itself who have had no problem self-identifying as a progressive act.

But I do know what you mean. I hate prog music for the most part, but I adore Rush. And a couple other bands on the spectrum - Yes comes to mind as does Primus. But that's because those bands all had something quite elusive in prog: Songs.

Although one of my favorite Rush songs is "Working Man" which always made me feel that Rush put songcraft ahead of wankery. Literally in that case, but also figuratively later on.

That Geddy Lee quote is the band (or Lee) explicitly saying he doesn't consider Rush prog, at least not how people use the term. "Our roots are in hard rock more than they are in ELP or something like that." He considers the band generically "progressive," which is to say, interesting, changing, ambitious etc. I mean, sure, some people consider the band prog. Radiohead, too. And Pink Floyd. And a bunch of other acts. But while there are always exceptions, I think of prog as the likes of Yes, Genesis, ELP, et al., bands with chops pegged to neo-classical pretensions. Not judging, but Rush only flirted with that for a bit in the '70s, then moved on (like King Crimson, post hiatus) to new wave and stuff in a more I feel natural evolution than Yes, Genesis and ELP (well, Asia) managed. Rush in the '80s was obviously massively influenced by the Police. "Owner of a Lonely Heart" might sound like the Police, but it was a more cynically commercial move.

(I say this as a huge fan of Genesis and, well, "Owner of a Lonely Heart." Don't like ELP and its offshoots).

They were an anomaly of sorts: a band that became hugely popular in the late 70s playing music that was equally influenced by early 70s hard rock and early 70s prog. They were coming from a different place than English hippies were five years earlier but we don't need to pretend like they weren't doing rock operas with overtures.

Xpost

Rush isn't a prog band? You should tell that to all the prog fans who feel otherwise. Or to the band itself who have had no problem self-identifying as a progressive act.

i really don't care what prog fans think about anything

but yeah josh basically pegs it, they are fundamentally different than most of the UK prog bands

also - rush - to my knowledge never really jammed and did extended explorations on their songs in concert, times i've seen them have been super faithful renditions

they have prog elements, but musically they feel cut from a way different cloth than prog proper

i also don't think pink floyd - despite doing stuff like dark side and meddle and the wall - is a prog band in the true sense, though i see them referred to as such

That's true of many prog bands, too, who were often big on the compositions per se.

Xpost yeah, I agree, M@tt. Just think it's overstating things to say they were no more prog than the Police.

I think of everything from Fly By Night up to Hemispheres as their prog era. They always said Yes and Genesis were big influences at that point.

xpost Which is ironic, given the Police has actual bona fide prog roots!

Yes/Genesis never really jammed live either though, just basically duplicated all their studio solos note-for-note, didn't they?

xxxpost

Yeah, I dunno if jamming is a tenet of pro. Neo-classical pretensions traditionally is, though. But where others were aping classical composers, Rush was referencing cartoon music and weird middle eastern scales.

I was trying to find footage or clips of Andy Summers in Soft Machine, but here's Stewart in Curved Air!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8BJoKNLSG8

prog is essentially meaningless but imo if a band does enough material with the kind of song lengths, and non-standard song structures and time signatures as Rush has, it's at least moderately useful as a default definition. there's not really any point in fighting it.

Speaking of cartoon music/"Powerhouse," shouldn't the credits on "La Villa" include Raymond Scott, seeing as how that's about 1/3rd of the song?

some dude but you could argue they were a hard rock band at the beginning then basically a new wave/hard rock band by the end of the 70s and basically stayed as such for awhile, then gradually returned a bit to proggier elements but i still say they are an odd duck in rock history not prog

xpost Nah, it's just a few measures. I don't think the band needs to credit Tchaikovsky on the "2112" overture, either.

they're hardly the only band that did complex epics in the '70s and then something more streamlined in the '80s though. should we say Genesis are categorically not prog because of Invisible Touch?

I mean, quoting Tchaikovsky in the OVERTURE to a multi-movement work seems like a blatant allusion to art music to me, especially when I really think they were trying to use the overture to introduce the thematic material in the rest of the work. Are there more obvious classical allusions in "Supper's Ready"?

Not saying this proves anything per se but Geddy Lee includes Yes, Tull, Floyd, and Genesis amongst his favourite albums of all time fwiw: http://thequietus.com/articles/09210-rush-geddy-lee-interview-favourite-albums?page=14

Btw, I know that guys in the Police used to play in prog bands but I still think the Police's own music was more traditionally pop in its song forms, compared to what Rush was doing in the late 70s. (I don't consider Journey a Latin rock band either.)

Oh for sure Rush had its '70s prog apex. No argument there. It's just reductive to call them a prog band as the term usually connotes.

The Police famously dumbed down its prog chops to get a piece of the punk pie. Rush, I think importantly, never dumbed itself down a la, again, Yes or Asia or Genesis. Rush just got more efficient at what it did, but nobody would consider their '80s stuff pandering or catering to the radio like those other bands. If anything, the '80s stuff is even busier and more adventurous than a lot of the '70s stuff, oddly enough. The band just became so good at what it does that the transition/evolution was largely seamless. No awkward growing pains record in the Rush catalog, I don't think, let alone even a single standalone AOR sop they're embarrassed about or have disowned.

My instincts were telling me not to click on the Sheffield link but apparently I hate myself.

they got constant airplay, way out of proportion to their actual record sales.

This is blatantly false, right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_discography

xpost

nobody would consider their '80s stuff pandering or catering to the radio like those other bands

I think many people do. I don't know if I'd exactly say they were intentionally pandering but I do find them less interesting in the mid- to late 80s, for the most part, sometimes considerably so.