what's the best Rush album?

Another admirable aspect of Chronicles, for both casual and fanatical Rush fans: It contains NOTHING that isn't on any of their other LPs, i.e. nothing to entice superfans into buying all that stuff they already have just for a single new song or two. Ya gotta respect that, even if it is a moot point in these days of file-sharing.)

Haha -- you know what, this isn't exactly entirely true! When they first coverted the Rush catalog to Compact Disc, they left off a song from each of the first two live double LPs, All the World's A Stage ("What You're Doing") and Exit Stage Left ("A Passage to Bangkok"), in order to fit each of them onto a single CD. Then when Chronicles came out they put those two songs on there.

And even though I can still get some enjoyment out of (old) Rush, I empathize with Alfred 100%: Rush fans who play instruments can be some of the most obnoxious fans of any band you'll ever meet.

I was among the young rockers who thought they sold out a little with "Tom Sawyer" and stuff like that. I thought the same about Styx too when they started getting played on KISS-FM. I was such a purist then, I'm younger than that now.

Hell, Exit Stage Left is one of the most enthusiastic live albums I have ever heard. And I don't just mean that it's loud or fast or anything like that. I mean it sure sounds like the band is really BEHIND what they're doing, that it means something to them and they are having a fucking blast.

(compare this enthusiasm to, say, some Steve Vai records or Killroy Was Here, and I think you can see the stark contrast).

I sat next to a hardcore rush fan at a brekafast counter a couple of months ago. Dude had a huge 2112 tatoo on his upper arm. I had never met anyone like him; he was willing to explain, in great detail, why every Rush album was great, IN ITS ENTIRETY. He even defended the rapping on Roll the Bones. It was awesome. He was also really nice about it and not obnoxious at all.

Oh and Moving Pictures still sounds like the BEST. But Signals is the surprise album I thought I didn't really like, but is now kicking my arse. And a friend is bringing over Power Windows on the wkend. It's a good week.

presto may not be the best RUSH album but i'd swear it's the most underrated

I like Presto, but for me the answer to this is all the albums from 1976 to 1985.

I said it on one of the other threads, but I think it may have the band's best songwriting, with the playing supporting the song, as opposed to the playing/sound/arrangements being the focus. It's almost an experiment, how pared down it is.

Presto is my favorite Rush album. Their best is Rush In Rio.

Not sure I agree with that: 'Fly by Night', 'Beneath, Between and Behind', 'Lessons', 'Something For Nothing', 'Closer to the Heart', 'The Spirit of Radio', 'New World Man' etc. are all fine examples of the playing supporting the song.

(x-post)

In fact, even on stuff like 'Red Barchetta' and 'The Analog Kid', the song is pretty much the focus.

We're talking about an album, goofball. Not individual tracks. I think start to finish, as an album, that Presto sounds very songwriter-y, emphasized even more by the sound of the record being so relatively spare and subdued.

You said - and the post is above - that you think Presto may have the bands best songwriting. I disagree, as there are examples of better songwriting from them elsewhere.

I meant Presto the album. Start to finish. Not that Presto particularly features songs that exemplify the band's best songwriting - plenty of Rush albums have songs that exemplify good songwriting (in the guy in a coffee shop with guitar sense) - but that stylistically the album, as a whole, of a piece, feels very much like this. Just very straight forward. Nothing else they've done is this stripped down and subdued. Even Show Don't Tell, the busiest track on here, is kind of chill.

"Grace Under Pressure" (along with Yes's "Drama") makes me wish that Disco-Prog (or, at least Post Punk Prog) would have become a real genre instead of a Kohoutek-like musical comet, arriving and departing without leaving a trace of influence. Then again, I could be wrong, and there might be hundreds of bands who build awesome songs upon the foundations provided by "Tempus Fugit" and "Between the Wheels".

Does that voice at the end of 2112 completely scare the piss out of anyone else? It's always given me chills ever since I was a kid and still does.