Do you think of Permanent Waves as a 70s album or an 80s album?

[savagegrace26]

I think of it as an album recorded in 2112

[Todem]

Permanent Waves is my all time favorite Rush album. It was the perfect marriage of their prog roots (Natural Science and Jacobs Ladder) with their new found pop sensibility. The Spirit Of Radio IMO is the perfect Rush song. It has everything great about Rush in one little in your face song. Power, Dynamics, infectious lyrics you sing along too, and the start of the best era of Rush IMO.

 

Freewill is also another landmark tune with a heavier edge but still an infectious melody.

 

This is the album where Rush finally started to come into their own as a rock trio that can write timeless classic songs that would appeal to a wider audience. Pure brilliance.

 

It's an 80's album.

Edited August 14, 2014 by Todem

[Rutlefan]

Rush through MP is all of one arc, so in that sense both PeW and MP are "Seventies" albums. More importantly, they also have more of a solid, classic rock feel than a New Wave feel; just because they are a break from AFTK and Hemi doesn't mean they should be grouped with Blondie and The Police. Signals is their first "Eighties" album in that the New Wave elements stand out more than the classic rock elements. By GUP it was clearly so.

[Ged Lent's sis]

Half of it was 70's (Freewill, JL, NatSci). Half of it was 80's (TSOR, Freewill, Entre Nous, Different Strings). Overall I usually group it with Moving Pictures as 80s...

 

I really like this way of thinking of it. I think a lot of people who were in high school at the time would agree. I was in the eighth grade and it was my first concert ever. I don't think I could fathom the eighties as a thing yet at that point because it was the first decade changeover I would consciously experience. And even in retrospect, hearing Natural Science live from St. Louis on the radio: the seventies were obviously still alive and well.

 

it was the doorway to the 80's. I remember it feeling like a pretty significant shift in direction at the time.

 

I get this, too. The doorway part kind of matches what I said earlier about it being of neither decade.

 

It also brings me around to the thinking that the opening salvo in Tom Sawyer* is like the band saying "Love us or hate us, we have now arrived in the 80s."

 

edited to add: *of course, one might say the same about TSoR

Edited August 14, 2014 by Ged Lent's sis

[len(songs)]

Hold on a minute, if you look at the question, "Yes" would mean it was a 70's album OR an 80's album. "No" would mean it is neither. So everyone should answer "Yes", unless they think it's a 90's album or something...

[Segue Myles]

Hold on a minute, if you look at the question, "Yes" would mean it was a 70's album OR an 80's album. "No" would mean it is neither. So everyone should answer "Yes", unless they think it's a 90's album or something...

 

This is true

[Slack jaw gaze]

I think of it as a green album, although I have no idea why.

[troutman]

It's all 80's,

 

The band moved on.

[rugen]

I think of it as a green album, although I have no idea why.

 

That's a Eddie Jobson's album 1983

[LedRush]

Bump

[Lorraine]

I should have done a search first.

 

Sorry.

[len(songs)]

Eighties

[LedRush]

I should have done a search first.

 

Sorry.

 

I don't know that discussing this in 2 threads is worse than rating Neil's top five high-hat hits.

[EagleMoon]

I should have done a search first.

 

Sorry.

 

I don't know that discussing this in 2 threads is worse than rating Neil's top five high-hat hits.

 

It's like getting neck strain from watching a digital tennis match.

[Rutlefan]

What the h*ll, one more time, it's an AOR album, a characteristic of '70s music, making it a '70s album. '80s music was characterized by singles and videos. Signals to me was Rush's first '80s album, at least that's how it felt like to me at the time. With MP Rush was still a traditional rock band, though an amazingly excellent Galaxy Class one without peer in 1981. With Signals it was like, "So, Rush has got on board with this Duran Duran and Talking Heads thing. Oh well, we'll see where this goes."

[Empty Mindless Spectre]

 

1. Time Fools

When the effing tribe debates

A long (part cocky) bore, fine!

We'll weave a tale of time-based fools

Spinnin' short-lived fallacy.

Each micromanaged pennant

A complete insanity.

 

A simple kind fear

To reject those not our own.

With the crazy little features

Washing out the decade's seas.

Living like the fools,

They soon forget a seas a sea...

 

Very nicely done. Borderline genius, yet crass at the same time…

[Empty Mindless Spectre]

I've never heard someone not say it, but ...

That phrase will cause a brain reset if you really try and interpret it.

 

I did hear someone not say it once, and we proceeded to not argue about it the rest of the evening. To this day, I still have no idea what he wasn't talking about.

[bathory]

the 80s were not all about singles and videos. if the videos are all you cared to check out, that's a shame. lots of great music, but I've covered that in this thread, I'm sure.

[bathory]

cue led's "Hey, the 90s brought music back to life with flannel-clad pop rock!" :D

[Empty Mindless Spectre]

First off I can't respond to the poll, because I don't agree with the way any of the choices have been framed. To suggest that considering PWaves an 80's album means I am either a stickler for details or classify it along with synth era albums is awfully narrow minded. I essentially agree with those who consider PWaves an 80's album but don't see it as a synth era album. I also agree with the person who characterized it as a "transitional" album. But honestly, as I have said before in another thread, I've always felt like ALL Rush albums have been transitional. When I discovered Rush, I chose to work my way through their library chronologically, and one thing that stood out to me was that each album seemed like a "bridge" between the album before and after it. I think the same is true of PWaves, but I also think it sounds decidedly distinct and more innovative from the other hard rock albums from the same time period.

[LedRush]

cue led's "Hey, the 90s brought music back to life with flannel-clad pop rock!" :D

 

The 90s made non-pop rock popular. The popular music of the early 90s was far better than most popular music of most of the 80s...especially the 1984-1988 time.

[Empty Mindless Spectre]

I find fascinating that artists suddenly decide to produce such distinctly different music at the turn of each decade. It's very considerate of them to do that for us so we can fit everything in neat little boxes when we have these discussions/arguments.

[savagegrace26]

I find fascinating that artists suddenly decide to produce such distinctly different music at the turn of each decade. It's very considerate of them to do that for us so we can fit everything in neat little boxes when we have these discussions/arguments.

 

Well all artists seemed to stop doing this during the transition from the 90s to the 00s and from the 00s to the 10s. I guess they got tired of it ;)

Edited October 2, 2014 by savagegrace26

[LedRush]

I find fascinating that artists suddenly decide to produce such distinctly different music at the turn of each decade. It's very considerate of them to do that for us so we can fit everything in neat little boxes when we have these discussions/arguments.

 

Well all artists seemed to stop doing this during the transition from the 90s to the 00s and from the 00s to the 10s. I guess they got tired of it ;)

 

Except the 90s, of course. And the music industry is exactly the same as it was then.

[Ged Lent's sis]

1. Time Fools

When the effing tribe debates

A long (part cocky) bore, fine!

We'll weave a tale of time-based fools

Spinnin' short-lived fallacy.

Each micromanaged pennant

A complete insanity.

 

A simple kind fear

To reject those not our own.

With the crazy little features

Washing out the decade's seas.

Living like the fools,

They soon forget a seas a sea...

 

Very nicely done. Borderline genius, yet crass at the same time…

 

I thanky. That's me to a T-heehee: a smart-alec who'd love to be a genuis!

 

Rush through MP is all of one arc, so in that sense both PeW and MP are "Seventies" albums. More importantly, they also have more of a solid, classic rock feel than a New Wave feel; just because they are a break from AFTK and Hemi doesn't mean they should be grouped with Blondie and The Police. Signals is their first "Eighties" album in that the New Wave elements stand out more than the classic rock elements. By GUP it was clearly so.

 

In fairness, Blondie and The Police were seventies bands before they were eighties bands, too; even if for a few fewer years than Rush.

 

I should point out that I do, indeed, find this to be a fascinating topic to which there is no real answer - just permanently changing perspectives.

 

Via the bump of this thread, a thought it prompted, and a quick look to the following links - an invaluable resource for the crotchety RUSH enthusiast:

http://cygnus-x1.net/links/rush/setlists.php

http://cygnus-x1.net/links/rush/tourdates.php#PERMANENTWAVES

 

...as we may be aware, especially in the early days, the band has done mini-tours whereupon they have performed material from their upcoming albums previous to their release. PW is a classic example. Throughout the cornfields of the North American Midwest, the opening riff to TSoR was to become familiar in the waning summer of '79.

 

So among all my other answers: it's a seventies album released for an eighties audience -or- an eighties album that documents the seventies.