Dead horse

[JohnRogers]

I listened to Caravan while in the shower.

[daveyt]

I would say a masterpiece would have me smiling ear to ear or interested throughout.

[daveyt]

I always think of Caravan whenever I hear commuter train bells ring and then hum the intro

[JohnnyBlaze]

Dead horses ... Couldn't drag me away... Oh wrong song.

 

 

But I like CA. Has some great songs on it.

And, since we're beating dead horses here, I'll post my revised version of CA, the way I like to hear the songs.

 

1. Clockwork Angels

2. BU2B

3. The Anarchist

4. Seven Cities of Gold

5. Carnies

6. BU2B2

7. Headlong Flight

 

I’ll beat my (*slightly modified) horse too then...

 

1. Caravan

2. BU2B

3. Clockwork Angels

4. The Anarchist

5. Carnies

6. Headlong Flight

 

That’s 37+ minutes of good material with CA, Anarchist, and HF being home runs or at least triples.

 

 

*The Garden made the cut several months back but the last few listens have made me want to drop it from the list.

 

Edited May 29, 2018 by JohnnyBlaze

[Blue Barchetta]

An amazing end to their career with this album, I will say some songs I don't really like (Seven Cities of Gold, Wish them Well for example)

 

 

But there are so many amazing songs also (BU2B, The Wreckers, The Garden etc.)

I can do without Wish Them Well, but the riff on SCOG is one of the coolest parts of the album to me.

[Blue Barchetta]

I think Headlong Flight is one of Rush's best songs. I can listen to it on repeat and not get tired of it. For all the praise The Garden gets as being a proper farewell, I would argue that HF should have been the final cut. Everything we (or at least "I") love about Rush in condensed form.

[Blue Barchetta]

Dead horses ... Couldn't drag me away... Oh wrong song.

 

 

But I like CA. Has some great songs on it.

And, since we're beating dead horses here, I'll post my revised version of CA, the way I like to hear the songs.

 

1. Clockwork Angels

2. BU2B

3. The Anarchist

4. Seven Cities of Gold

5. Carnies

6. BU2B2

7. Headlong Flight

 

Glad to see Carnies on your list. Underrated IMO.

What is it Geddy says about Carnies on the CA DVD? "A nice, laid-back tune." Or something to that effect.

[jnoble]

Outside of the songs themselves I'm still not sure why the band was OK signing off on the compressed wall of noise sound production. I thought they learned their lesson from Vapor Trails all those years prior. I can't listen past two or three tracks before hitting the stop or eject buttons

[Blue Barchetta]

Outside of the songs themselves I'm still not sure why the band was OK signing off on the compressed wall of noise sound production. I thought they learned their lesson from Vapor Trails all those years prior. I can't listen past two or three tracks before hitting the stop or eject buttons

It does take a lot of fiddling with the sound, no doubt, to make CA sound good. I'm with you on the production...If you just put that CD in at standard settings, it sounds like crap! Same with Vapor Trails. Not sure why the boys would make us work so much to hear albums that...at the core...are pretty damn good.

[Wil1972]

Dead horses ... Couldn't drag me away... Oh wrong song.

 

 

But I like CA. Has some great songs on it.

And, since we're beating dead horses here, I'll post my revised version of CA, the way I like to hear the songs.

 

1. Clockwork Angels

2. BU2B

3. The Anarchist

4. Seven Cities of Gold

5. Carnies

6. BU2B2

7. Headlong Flight

 

Glad to see Carnies on your list. Underrated IMO.

What is it Geddy says about Carnies on the CA DVD? "A nice, laid-back tune." Or something to that effect.

 

Yea something like that.

[Tony R]

CA sucks.

 

for reasons i've listed over and over again.

 

look em up.

 

Mick

 

Like anyone gives a shit.

 

It's ironic that you would try to negate the relevance of an on topic post by a regular and widely-accepted poster with a post that, by your own reasoning, lacks relevance.

 

Do try to remember we're here to hear each other's opinions and express our own.

Agree, I’ve said that in posts many times, look them up.

 

 

You are completely misreading my post.

[That One Guy]

When I bought CA on release, I really liked it at the time, but figured my opinion would lower after the new car smell wore off. It did.

 

Definitely a decent album.

[diatribein]

Outside of the songs themselves I'm still not sure why the band was OK signing off on the compressed wall of noise sound production. I thought they learned their lesson from Vapor Trails all those years prior. I can't listen past two or three tracks before hitting the stop or eject buttons

 

As someone who has been in the room with Mastering Engineers, you hear the constant refrain of "You have to be competitive..." or "It will be competitive..." in order to justify the use of digital peak limiters and dynamic compression. Competitive means that when you put in another CD from any other artist that has been mastered in the last 20 years it won't sound markedly lower in volume. If you have an original CD version of Hold Your Fire, A Show Of Hands, or any other CD manufactured prior to 1992 and you put it in your CD player without adjusting your volume, after a CD Mastered in the last 20 years, it will be much lower in volume. Things have gotten better since the peak of the loudness war (2001-2006), but not by much. The reason music, for the most part, has not returned to the good practice Mastering of the early 90's and before is mostly due to the people doing the Mastering wanting the music they are responsible for to be "competitive".

 

The reason why Clockwork Angels and Snakes & Arrows are loud and compressed has very little to do with Nick Raskulinecz or the band, and is much more about Brian Gardner and his recommendations to the band and the production team. In fact, the 24-Bit 96kHz digital version of Snakes & Arrows made available for download with the 2016 vinyl re-release of Snakes & Arrows was Mastered beautifully and with as much dynamic range as anything released prior to 1992. The argument could be why didn't the band demand that the album not be Mastered to be competitive, but rather to maximize dynamic range. Sitting at home arguing this point is easy, but when you are in a band facing pressure from record companies, management, and other sources, it is difficult to go against the wave. I have been in that room. Mastering Engineers are highly educated and experienced people who know their craft. When the question is posed as sounding dated versus being competitive with the current sound it is very hard to argue for the former.

 

Vapor Trails is a little bit of a different case. It was recorded at the height of the loudness war and suffered not only in the Mastering stage, but in the recording process. The individual tracks (say guitars, bass, vocals...) were recorded "hot". That means many of the parts were already clipped and compressed before even getting to the Mastering stage. This is why certain parts of the original mix of Vapor Trails actually distort. The final Master was one of the 25 loudest records ever released. So Vapor Trails suffered from compounding problems of a very loud mix coupled with an extremely loud Master. This is the primary reason Vapor Trails Remixed was released. What it did was correct as much as possible from the mixing stage, but it was Mastered with the exact same tolerance as Clockwork Angels. In stupid terms, Vapor Trails Remixed is still loud as ass, but at least it doesn't fart as much!

 

In a way they did learn their lesson from Vapor Trails, because the 3 subsequent albums (Feedback, Snakes & Arrows, and Clockwork Angels) were recorded and mixed with good practices. All of the parts are well mixed without distortion or clipping prior to Mastering. For Feedback and Snakes & Arrows a properly Mastered version is available from 2016. The other albums released after Vapor Trails, including the remixed version, have been only made available with loud compressed Mastering. Whether or not that will change in the future is anybody's guess, but I would expect that Clockwork Angels is the release that is most likely to have a properly Mastered version be made available at some point in time.

 

 

.

Edited June 2, 2018 by diatribein

[Entre_Perpetuo]

CA sucks.

 

for reasons i've listed over and over again.

 

look em up.

 

Mick

 

Like anyone gives a shit.

 

It's ironic that you would try to negate the relevance of an on topic post by a regular and widely-accepted poster with a post that, by your own reasoning, lacks relevance.

 

Do try to remember we're here to hear each other's opinions and express our own.

Agree, I’ve said that in posts many times, look them up.

 

 

You are completely misreading my post.

 

Perhaps I am. Sorry.

[snowdogged]

CA is definitely a good album for them to go out on but it is no classic. I actually prefer S&A to CA. S&A is the album that I don't really understand why it gets so much hate here on TRF.

[jnoble]

Because midtempo folk music isn't Rush's strength. Far Cry and Malignant N are really the only songs on S&A that SOUND like classic Rush and have their trademark dynamics and energy. Everything else on that album just isn't compelling or makes one want to be excited to listen again. If you really like it though, that's great and I respect that. I will give S&A credit in that it sounds much better than the previous ear bleeding VT

[losingit2k]

I love every Rush album, especially their early ones but I still say clockwork angels is a masterpiece. Only one song of theirs makes say how the hell did they come up with that and that is Tom Sawyer. But clockwork angels makes me say the same thing about the whole album

 

I agree CA is in my top 3. Its Wall to Wall!