Rush: Classic or Dud?

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.

Like, Hold Your Fire was by the same guys who did A Farewell to Kings?

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

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, August 9, 2013 6:52 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ha, yeah, I suppose. But I don't think "Powerhouse" was public domain in 1978 (not that the money would've necessarily gone to Scott's estate).

Considering Paul's Boutique was way after 1978, I doubt a polite nod to Raymond Scott was a big issue at the time.

Funny that people are even discussing whether or not Rush is prog. I'd say they clearly are in the larger sense of the word--same way the Beatles were progressive. Constant reinvention is progressive by nature. If you're attempting to put Rush in a genre less broad than "rock" you're going to fail because they are simply bigger than any term you can come up with.

They are #3 to the Beatles and Rolling Stones now in the most consecutive gold and platinum records by any artist. They recently bumped Kiss and Aerosmith behind them. If they keep it up, they'll be #1 of all time. Not that they have anything left to prove.

I'm not a big fan of the 80s stuff, but this last tour was fantastic. They can take their most banal era and breath immortal life into it on stage. Plenty of people blindly "hate" them, but that's all lazy ignorance. Just watch Beyond the Lighted Stage and it's tough to stay vehement against 3 such nice guys and pure artists.

xpost Yeah, but who would have expected "A Farewell to Kings" from the guys who did "Working Man?" Or even "Fly By Night?" Or, hell, something as awesomely bonkers but strangely concise as "Spirit of Radio" just a year or so after "Hemispheres" (which has only four songs!)? The band wanted and needed to pare things down. So I don't hear the '80s stuff as pandering so much as embracing current styles a la the Police. My point is that something like "Hold Your Fire" does not come out of nowhere. They'd been developing in that direction for years. And because of that, the group could get away with an almost all '80s live set this time around, new material aside.

Sometimes I think the biggest bullet the band dodged was losing Steve Lillywhite as the producer of "Grace Under Pressure." Love Lillywhite, but he would have been totally wrong for the band, and also cemented them to that very specific time.

Has anyone ever heard any Rush demos? Have any such things ever leaked? I think I've maybe heard an alternate "Tom Sawyer," but that's it.

Hey, look, Power Windows demos! This is awesome!

http://www.rushisaband.com/display.php?id=1341

I wonder why Rush would ever need to demo anything, except for each other. They've always kept their various labels pretty much at arm's length (I say this as someone who works for their current label); they make their albums entirely on their own terms, and turn them in when they're done. Nobody in the back office gets a "no" vote on anything. When they told us that their latest album was gonna have a 28-page CD booklet (which drives up costs considerably), well, they were gonna have a 28-page CD booklet, end of discussion.

In the case of Power Windows, I bet it's specifically because Geddy and the producer had to work on a lot of the sequencer stuff, and then Alex came in a little later to rework his guitar to fit the stuff that was more or less fixed in place. Iirc. This is why Alex sometimes complains about those late '80s records. He was a little constrained (even though they feature some of my favorite guitar things).

Peter Collins:

"When I first worked with them, they wanted to be involved with the technological breakthroughs that were happening in England at the time, the Trevor Horn sound that he'd achieved with Yes and Frankie and those sort of bands. So I was able to help them move into that area, and be a foil, a sounding-board for Neil Peart on the drums and push him into different areas. When I first got involved, Alex Lifeson had this horrible mismatched guitar pedalboard, which needed a lot of work -- or, rather, lot of work had been done to it, and that was the problem. It was just a question of coming in fresh, and getting them to change some things they'd always done. If there's somebody to say to them 'Guys, I think that section could be better, it could be more exciting, or it could be more laid-back,' or whatever, they like that. They like to be challenged.

"In the case of Rush, they strive to be better with every record, they strive to progress with every record. AC/DC strive to sound exactly as they did on their first record on their 14th record, and that's their strength, but Rush want to be different on every record and to progress. As human beings, that's the way they are, they're very interesting people, and they need continual intellectual and musical stimulation."

xpost Have you ever met the guys or do you know people who have? They seem like exceptionally mellow/modest/reasonable people. I wonder if, at the height of their crossover fame (when would that be? early '80s?), if they ever got pressure from their labels to go for more success or whatever. Because they really do seem to have done exactly what they've wanted to do, minus any grandiosity or stupidity. Like I said earlier, it's amazing that they never released their "whoops" record. Just about every other band of their relative duration sure has, from the Stones to U2, but not Rush.

Yeah, I agree that even on the records that I find less inspiring, they were probably not pandering or being cynical. I mean, I'm sure they wanted to be big from the start but I'm equally sure that their stylistic changes have been motivated as much or more by a genuine interest in trying out new ideas and sounds. I've long thought that it was remarkably bold for a band that had become successful (commercially and artistically) playing progressive heavy rock to wholeheartedly embrace 80s synth technology and new wave guitar styles and to become just as skilled with that stuff, even when I don't like all of it as much. I thought with some of their recent stuff, that they might have been listening to stuff like Tool, Mastodon, Cathedral.

i thought 'roll the bones' used to have that 'oops' honor. rather, more 'uh...'. sort of?

Nah, that album is solid. That song, or at least that one part of that song, is the closest they came. And they're not sorry, because they've played it on recent tours. The album's got some of their better later songs, actually. "Ghost of a Chance," "Dreamline" ...

But, hah, courtesy one of our own in EW at the time:

The most epic anthem is the title track, and it lasts just 5:30 (a mere eye blink in the ambitious crowd Rush runs in). What makes that one so long is that it's got a rap in it: For once, these guys seem to be acting silly on purpose.

Gives the album a "B," though.

The two songs you mention are great imo. I don't remember that much about the rest of the album, though. I find most of their post-MP albums inconsistent.

I really hate "Nobody's Hero", despite the statement, and honestly think that soured a generation on them, at least here.

you guys inspired me to finally watch 'beyond the lighted stage', so thanks

My impression was that Rush's "oops" album was Vapor Trails, and it wasn't because of the music but because it had a horrible brickwalled mix that made the whole thing sound like shit. I've never heard it, but in the upcoming Atlantic-years boxed set, VT has been completely remixed by producer David Bottrill (who I don't think worked on the original album). It's also being re-released separately with the new mix. As far as I know that's the only mistake the band has ever owned up to. That, and the kimonos.

most of the opposition to rush being called "prog", honestly, comes from progheads, to whom calling rush "prog" would be as anathema as calling kansas or styx prog. part of this is probably just anglo/europhilia, as there are very few north american bands from that era that your hardline proggers will dignify with the "prog" label, but there are technical differences too. like, if doing 20 minute songs with drum solos makes you "prog" why don't the allmans get to be prog. to a serious proghead back in the '90s, many of whom weren't even willing to confer "prog" status on a band like roxy music, the compositional complexity and aestheticism was simply lacking, and also they never used a mellotron.

my personal hatred of rush, as with all the bands i used to hate (back when i felt it was worth my time to do such things), stemmed less from the music than from the fanbase, who back then were basically the equivalent of tool fans in the late '90s- goon-rock for guys who wanted to style themselves as "thinking men". rush themselves, obv, are by no means goons (the rand thing was basically a phase they passed through quite a long time ago now).

progheads talk about rush and kansas on 'progressive ears' and 'progarchives' all the time. styx not so much. hard to call a band who had the seven album run rush did from fly by night ("by-tor and the snow dog," "rivendell" (!!!!)) through moving pictures non-prog. that's sort of like saying that because of get up with it miles davis was really into funk, not jazz. i get that the lingering stigma associated with prog makes some people want to qualify rush as 'proggish' instead of 'proggy,' but that leads to distortions, like forgetting the impact the buggles had on yes and thus rush when tallying the influence of new wave on prog rock. i mean, was regatta de blanc really a way bigger influence on permanent waves than drama (or duke) was? even if for some reason we see distance in retrospect, these guys were all totally into each other back in the day, geeking out over each other's music

Yeah, creative give or take or not, I got the impression one of the main traits of prog is mostly being into yourself. But I've never got the feeling Rush was showing off or being particularly indulgent. There's a lot of movement in their music, but since the '70s it's been so efficient, super well-arranged, rarely aimless or meandering. Again, take "La Villa ..." or even "YYZ;" they're so much fun, even goofy at times, almost as if to undercut the show-offyness.

Personally, I do think the Police was a bigger influence on the band than those other acts, yeah, not just in the reggae shifts the group started to take, but particularly on Lifeson, who basically retooled his sound to emulate/reflect Andy Summers' influences, something Lifeson held onto for the next decade-plus.

the fanbase, who back then were basically the equivalent of tool fans in the late '90s- goon-rock for guys who wanted to style themselves as "thinking men"

Man, I've been a Rush fan for, what, nearly 30 years now, and I like Tool enough that I have their records and enjoy the last two a ton. But I've seen Rush live several times, and Tool live a few times, and let me tell you, there may be some overlap, but the vibe I got at the latter was nowhere near "thinking men." "Goon rock," sure. The vibe is soooooo much more testosterone aggro at a Tool show. Rush, on the other hand, is the last band I'd consider a '90s goon show. WHat sums Rush up for me is seeing my University's orchestra perform, and noting that the percussionist had a Rush t-shirt just barely peeking out though his tux, no doubt by design.

that's sort of like saying that because of get up with it miles davis was really into funk, not jazz.

As the guy who wrote an entire book arguing that Miles Davis stopped being a jazz musician in late 1969 (and that's a good thing, and jazz critics should let it go), I gotta raise a hand here.

Aren't self indulgence and showing off total opposites? Unless you alternate between the two.

I've always held the opinion that self indulgence is the ideal in expressive art (not ideal in something more documentary like or factual). It takes serious hard work and deep searching to really know what you love to be able to self indulge.

People always say "do what you love and have a great time doing it", "be honest and true to yourself", "do something creatively fulfilling", "If it doesn't move you it wont move anyone else". Isnt that all self indulgence?

What I think people always call self indulgence actually isn't: lazy experimentalism the artist assumes they can get away with and assumes the audience wont complain (or the part of the audience the artist cares about).
That is the opposite of doing what you love and relentlessly pursuing fulfilment.

I think ELP's weaker moments (which are many) come from them showing off, not being self indulgent enough. I adore the second part of Karn Evil 9 but it mostly sounds like they were determined to make it sound complex without the bones of a good song.

Josh In Chicago says "There's a lot of movement in their music, but since the '70s it's been so efficient, super well-arranged, rarely aimless or meandering...they're so much fun"

But this is how I would characterise Yes, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Gentle Giant, Renaissance, Genesis, Camel, Art Zoyd, Magma, Goblin, Ruins etc. Geddy Lee even says this about Yes in that Quietus link.

I'm a big prog fan but I think there is a problem with the fans. I think the fans often do have a snobby, smug, pompous, self satisfied, dismissive, close minded attitude. I think they might have given the genre the pompous asshole reputation more than any of the bands.
I also dislike a huge amount of metalheads. But metal fans are also a huge part of what is good about the genre, the absoloute dedication and support they give their genre. You might say the same about prog fans?

But fans can also hurt and kill the thing they love by loving it so unconditionally and blocking out evolution because they want the same old thing. Geeks didn't save comics and sf/fantasy/horror, they mostly ruined it.

sure but what would you say about someone arguing that because of get up with it, kind of blue is really funk?

xpost

sure but what would you say about someone arguing that because of get up with it, kind of blue is really funk?

That they were insane, of course. But for years and years jazz critics used to bitch about Miles' electric albums for not swinging, not featuring enough virtuosic soloing (Pete Cosey didn't count, I guess), etc., etc., holding him to the standards of jazz. My argument was that basically once he plugged in, he was no longer a jazz musician. Not because jazz can't be electric, but because his whole methodology changed at the same time. It was a radical, top-to-bottom overhaul. But jazz critics kept trying to evaluate him in terms of jazz (at least in part, I think, because they needed his name to keep the genre something the general public would give an eighth of a shit about). But this is a total thread derail, so I'll stop now.

Re prog, I would agree with Robert that Yes and Genesis in particular made extremely disciplined music. King Crimson had a lot of improv, and it wasn't always brilliant. And yeah, ELP's showoffiness is sometimes what makes them awesome, and just as many times it's what ruins their stuff. (Also, when they try to be funny on purpose - "Benny the Bouncer" - they fucking suck outright. Prog bands generally should never try to be funny.)