what's the best Rush album?

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.

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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.