Rush: Classic or Dud?

Hmmmm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYx5AOMtwU0

counterpoint: my brother's wife is the biggest Rush fan I have ever met and I find that at least 50% of my conversations with her, no matter where they start, wind up in Rush territory.

I'm kind of in awe of this guy's chops

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD5Xo1Tkh4U

I just started Power Windows this week. I'm really impressed, I had heard very mixed things but this has some great stuff on it, "International" is amazing. Do any of the following albums have this sound?

Hmm, sort of. Hold Your Fire is in the same vein, but more mushy 80s in sound.

Grace Under Pressure is great (a little different but very 80s in a good way imo)

They are the Ultimate Dude Band – I’m not sure I ever met a woman who liked them.

― Naive Teen Idol, Thursday, March 22, 2018 8:59 PM (yesterday)
Have heard this said in various ways for decades and accepted it without much thought. It's true that the biggest Rush fans I've known have all been nerdy guys, but that's hardly a surprise, given my personality & social circles. Might say more about me & mine than the fandom at large (I've never been to a Rush show, so I wouldn't know).

Anyway, I mentioned this bit of received wisdom the other day, to the bemused shock of my GF and her best friend. They love Rush. They see/embrace the nerdiness and had never noticed any "dudes only" signage. Which kind of shocked me in turn, but only because I habitually mistake my imaginary version of "what people think" for reality.

I know at least a few female Rush fans, and the last few times I saw the band live there were plenty of women in the audience.

They are definitely a "nerd" band, though.

Grace Under Pressure is a darker, more stark album, but just as fantastic. JiC is correct that Hold Your Fire comes off as a lesser follow up. It has a lot of the same synth stabs and sound effects, but lacks the exuberance that's all over Power Windows.

various XPs

Welcome back, contendo! Did you spend your entire time away crafting that last line as new board description fodder?

Thanks! And yes, yes I did.

hey contendo :)

Grace Under Pressure and Power Windows are my two favorites. The former is, yeah, starker and darker. The latter is more polished/expansive and ... invigorating, despite the sometimes equally dark themes.

favorite buried gem: "entre nous"

Hold your fire IMO has great songwriting imo and I like the ‘arrangements’ too. Just not the soundspace they are in. But the good easily outweighs that

Double imo

"Grace Under Pressure and Power Windows are my two favorites" two of mine also. actually I don't really care for any of their full albums after Power Windows. Hold Your Fire has some good stuff and there is good stuff on all their subsequent albums but to me PW is their last great back-to-front album.

Test for Echo is the only Rush album that I have no fondness for at all. But I really like Grace and PW for the mix of tight arrangements and triggering/electronics, which, ironically, probably would not be so prominent of they weren't dated. There was some great article I read - or maybe an excerpt from a book? - that went into all the pioneering sampler stuff they were doing to do what they were doing.

"International" is amazing.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, March 23, 2018 5:15 PM (one month ago)

Oops, it's called "Territories".

After the low expectations this album feels like such a gift. I think "Territories" and "Grand Designs" are two among their best songs.

power windows is great, it's one of my three favorite rush records (the other two being signals and grace under pressure)

Totally. It's where there was this perfect collision of songs, production, playing and concision. It always irks me when people call Rush a prog band based on just a couple of the '70s records Most of their songs are busy and complicated, but they are rarely particularly long, and they're almost always immaculately arranged.

For me, they were great from 2112 up to and including Power Windows, although I still love the first three albums. Hold Your Fire is the first one that I don't have any time for.

I bet you have at least 7-10 minutes for it.

Rush were definitely a prog band, but one that had several different phases.

Were the Police a prog band?

It seems that everyone has their own preferred "version" of Rush, but I thought they were equally great as a hard rock band as they were as a band that put together ambitious, intricate 20 minute sides and when they were soaking up new wave influences.

There's a world of difference between The Police and Rush, even if Rush were influenced by them for a short while. The Police were never as progressive, so the answer to your question is no.

The Police never rocked as hard as Rush either, thinking about it. Even during their early '80s period, Rush had stuff like 'The Analog Kid', which is a maturation of their hard rock side blended with the new wave and prog influences they'd picked up over the years.

Never as progressive because they never had 20 minute side-long songs?

hold your fire is uneven but "prime mover" and "time stand still" are prob my two favorite rush songs ever

Rush is not a prog band imo.

"prime mover" especially, my god xp

xpost That's what I say. I say they had a prog phase, but moved out of it pretty soon.

Ian Anderson once said The Police were the last great prog band.

They're more hard rock or modern rock with some prof flourishes

Never as progressive because they never had 20 minute side-long songs?

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, April 27, 2018 8:12 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You don't even need to look at the 20 minute sides - 'Subdivisions' is incredibly progressive.

But I mean, when someone talks about Rush in the context of prog rock, that's the phase they're referring to, right? I don't think it's crazy to make a connection to prog with the whole period from Fly by Night through Moving Pictures, which is six albums. If someone calls Metallica an important thrash band, they're not necessarily talking about "Nothing Else Matters".

3xp

xpost That's what I say. I say they had a prog phase, but moved out of it pretty soon.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, April 27, 2018 3:13 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean "Working Man" is about as gutbucket 70s hard rock as it gets

"The Analog Kid" sounds a lot like "Omegaman" by The Police

Like, Yes and Genesis moved out of their prog phases too.

excited to see how this vital question is resolved

I mean, yes, they moved away from doing stuff like 'Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres' in the sense that the compositions became shorter, but even though they did soak up new influences, they did not entirely abandon their prog and/or hard rock influences. 'YYZ' is progressive rock, as is 'Subdivisions' ...

Like, Yes and Genesis moved out of their prog phases too.

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Friday, April 27, 2018 3:22 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the key is Rush was not prog before they were prog
therefore their default state is not prog
it's just science really

pedantic point: genesis were not prog before they were prog

i've never heard the first yes album but i assume it isn't 100 percent prog either

(Wasn't going to go there but, yeah, so was Yes, arguably. xp!)

So, by that logic, since Status Quo were a psychedelic pop band before they were a boogie rock band, their default state is psychedelic pop.

SCIENCE!

there you go turrican you're getting it :)

I'm p sure ums was joking but also worth noting that "progressive rock" is by definition a fusion of aesthetics, i.e. not a genre that is about being 100% anything in the first place.xp