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Hold Your Fire: the directors' cuts?


Ged Lent's sis
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Hold Your Fire or Fire away  

36 members have voted

  1. 1. If HYF had been limited to 22'30" per side, would it have been perfect?

    • Nah, I wouldn't like it anyway.
    • No way, José Feliciano, leave it the way it is!
    • Absolutely. See my track list is in the comments section.


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Motion:

Had Hold Your Fire been limited to the time constraints of vinyl—22'30" per side—it might have been perfect.

 

Background explanation:

If you're like me, the album is special in a great way, but also singular in a not-so-great way. It starts off wonderfully and maintains a certain balance & flow over the first few songs, but then loses momentum and remains uneven right until the end. This is also singular in that it is the very first time I ever felt this way about a RUSH album.

 

At one time I would have called the album 'incomplete', but realize now that it is quite simply too long and would benefit from the removal of a pair of songs.

 

Actually, my initial instinct was to remove three songs. I won't say which ones just yet. But giving it more thought, I imagine one of the three perceived weakest would jump in quality with the removal of it's offending twin.

 

Whatdayathink??

 

This post is inspired by the recent bump of that other thread by vinciedaltrey.

http://www.therushfo...e/page__st__380

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It, like most every album from Signals through S&A, had some songs that were a bit weaker than most Rush songs. But I wouldn't want them not to be here. In fact, for a director's cut I was expecting MORE songs. As Johnny said, some expirement a don't work out, but lead to greater things. Perhaps if he band didn't have High Water or Tail Shan, they wouldn't have seen the need to move into more of a trio sound again.
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I'd have been happier with the record had it not included Turn the Page and Prime Mover.

 

They could've written the songs and learned from them without including them, thus making me happy and not sacrificing any beneficial learning experiences. Doesn't matter what fans of those songs think, of course.

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I'd have been happier with the record had it not included Turn the Page and Prime Mover.

 

They could've written the songs and learned from them without including them, thus making me happy and not sacrificing any beneficial learning experiences. Doesn't matter what fans of those songs think, of course.

I'm guessing that Rush has a lot more to learn about recording than they do about writing. Writing is only half the process for recording artists, right?
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I'd have been happier with the record had it not included Turn the Page and Prime Mover.

 

They could've written the songs and learned from them without including them, thus making me happy and not sacrificing any beneficial learning experiences. Doesn't matter what fans of those songs think, of course.

I'm guessing that Rush has a lot more to learn about recording than they do about writing. Writing is only half the process for recording artists, right?

Great. They could've recorded those songs too then and still not included them on the album. Save 'em for some cash-grab disc down the line that the "completists" would pounce on.

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The only time the song quality and momentum drop for me is on the last two tracks. I think the album is great up until Tai Shan just about kills everything. High Water is a decent tune but it just isn't on the same level of the first eight songs. If they had made this like the three albums before it and only had eight songs, ending the album with Turn The Page, it would be pretty close to a perfect album for me.
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I'd have been happier with the record had it not included Turn the Page and Prime Mover.

 

They could've written the songs and learned from them without including them, thus making me happy and not sacrificing any beneficial learning experiences. Doesn't matter what fans of those songs think, of course.

I'm guessing that Rush has a lot more to learn about recording than they do about writing. Writing is only half the process for recording artists, right?

Great. They could've recorded those songs too then and still not included them on the album. Save 'em for some cash-grab disc down the line that the "completists" would pounce on.

All the interviews they've done in the past regarding NOT releasing songs they've written point to this same point: They write, record, AND put it on the album. Nothing is thrown away. That's what our favorite band has been doing for nearly 40 years. Or haven't you noticed?
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yeah missteps can lead to greater missteps...take Presto for example

imho, RTB to Counterparts supports my earlier post. And I can say the same about S&A to CA

 

I'll never understand all the RTB hate by hard core Rush fans. RTB sold about a million more records than presto, winning back old fans scared away by the synth era and getting a whole new generation into Rush. It sold about as much as CP and Presto combined, and for good reason. Now, the sound advancement in CP was great, but I don't think that has anything to do with RTB's "failures" and has more to do with the gradual movement back to a sound fit for a trio.

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yeah missteps can lead to greater missteps...take Presto for example

imho, RTB to Counterparts supports my earlier post. And I can say the same about S&A to CA

 

I'll never understand all the RTB hate by hard core Rush fans. RTB sold about a million more records than presto, winning back old fans scared away by the synth era and getting a whole new generation into Rush. It sold about as much as CP and Presto combined, and for good reason. Now, the sound advancement in CP was great, but I don't think that has anything to do with RTB's "failures" and has more to do with the gradual movement back to a sound fit for a trio.

And that's cool. Even though I'm not a big fan of RTB, I still understand that EVERY song on it NEEDED to be done in order for Rush to eventually realize Counterparts (an album I like very much). That's what many on TRF don't seem to realize: ALL of these songs and albums are important to where the band is now.
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I'd have been happier with the record had it not included Turn the Page and Prime Mover.

 

They could've written the songs and learned from them without including them, thus making me happy and not sacrificing any beneficial learning experiences. Doesn't matter what fans of those songs think, of course.

I'm guessing that Rush has a lot more to learn about recording than they do about writing. Writing is only half the process for recording artists, right?

Great. They could've recorded those songs too then and still not included them on the album. Save 'em for some cash-grab disc down the line that the "completists" would pounce on.

All the interviews they've done in the past regarding NOT releasing songs they've written point to this same point: They write, record, AND put it on the album. Nothing is thrown away. That's what our favorite band has been doing for nearly 40 years. Or haven't you noticed?

 

Have you not noticed that we're discussing hypotheticals here? And I think responding to this particular hypothetical with the ol' "they needed to learn from their mistakes" line is a little silly. There's no reason a band can't write, record, and learn from bad songs without anyone else having to endure them.

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I'd have been happier with the record had it not included Turn the Page and Prime Mover.

 

They could've written the songs and learned from them without including them, thus making me happy and not sacrificing any beneficial learning experiences. Doesn't matter what fans of those songs think, of course.

I'm guessing that Rush has a lot more to learn about recording than they do about writing. Writing is only half the process for recording artists, right?

Great. They could've recorded those songs too then and still not included them on the album. Save 'em for some cash-grab disc down the line that the "completists" would pounce on.

All the interviews they've done in the past regarding NOT releasing songs they've written point to this same point: They write, record, AND put it on the album. Nothing is thrown away. That's what our favorite band has been doing for nearly 40 years. Or haven't you noticed?

 

Have you not noticed that we're discussing hypotheticals here? And I think responding to this particular hypothetical with the ol' "they needed to learn from their mistakes" line is a little silly. There's no reason a band can't write, record, and learn from bad songs without anyone else having to endure them.

Yeah I noticed. I also noticed that your hypothetical involves things the band never does. A reasonable hypothetical would be simply to record a shorter album with the INTENTION of writing fewer songs.
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Maybe I should have elaborated a little more:

Every single album up to and through Power Windows limited itself to 22'30" per side. Hold Your Fire was the first to take advantage of the time-length of the compact disc. Had they crafted the album the way they'd been used to - one'd have to remove at least two songs to achieve the same result**.

 

I say that it is not a coincidence: they strayed for the first time away from the compositional aggregation they had perfected as a band and as a result created 6-10 minutes of superfluousness.

 

Obviously opinions will vary, and as Cyclonus X-1 rightly states above, this is just fantasy. No need to make it a re-hatch of everyone's fave/least fave albums/eras.

 

 

**to be clear, wider groove/less date tech had been used to achieve fifty minutes on vinyl, but it decreased dynamic range, i.A.

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It's my fave album and I like it the way it is. I'm glad it had ten songs on it. When I first bought it, seeing them break from the 8 song format was great, so I couldn't wait to hear extra tunes.
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I'd have been happier with the record had it not included Turn the Page and Prime Mover.

 

They could've written the songs and learned from them without including them, thus making me happy and not sacrificing any beneficial learning experiences. Doesn't matter what fans of those songs think, of course.

I'm guessing that Rush has a lot more to learn about recording than they do about writing. Writing is only half the process for recording artists, right?

Great. They could've recorded those songs too then and still not included them on the album. Save 'em for some cash-grab disc down the line that the "completists" would pounce on.

All the interviews they've done in the past regarding NOT releasing songs they've written point to this same point: They write, record, AND put it on the album. Nothing is thrown away. That's what our favorite band has been doing for nearly 40 years. Or haven't you noticed?

 

Have you not noticed that we're discussing hypotheticals here? And I think responding to this particular hypothetical with the ol' "they needed to learn from their mistakes" line is a little silly. There's no reason a band can't write, record, and learn from bad songs without anyone else having to endure them.

Yeah I noticed. I also noticed that your hypothetical involves things the band never does. A reasonable hypothetical would be simply to record a shorter album with the INTENTION of writing fewer songs.

 

The premise of the whole thread revolves around something the band has never done. That's kind of the whole point of such hypotheticals: having a little fun discussing "what ifs." Obviously, things would get rather ridiculous if we took matters beyond the bounds of reason. But I don't think hypothesizing that for once in their long history Rush decided to do something that billions of other bands do routinely is all that much of a stretch.

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I have a few issues with this line of thinking.

 

First, some of their shorter albums had some of their worst songs. PoW has 3 songs that I don't like much at all.

 

Second, even most of the songs I don't like still have value to me. I'd not be happy to even see the 3 songs I reference above not on the album.

 

Third, the songs I don't like may not be the ones you don't like. I don't like most of CP, but most hard core fans like them.

 

Finally, some longer albums have no filler, like CA. That album cannot be shortened.

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It's my fave album and I like it the way it is. I'm glad it had ten songs on it. When I first bought it, seeing them break from the 8 song format was great, so I couldn't wait to hear extra tunes.

 

one great thing about rush - everyone's got a different favorite

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Look at it this way:

Imagine we are pre-compact disc and the band are releasing a single vinyl for Hold Your Fire that will follow the model of every album which preceded it, which is less than 22 minutes per side.

 

So in order to compile a selection of songs for this album, you have no other choice but to remove two songs to fit the album. You could remove one from each side and leave the running order as is, or you could remove two from one side and move one of the tracks to the other side.

 

You might think this is a stupid game. Fine. But if you are like me and adore about 80 percent of the record, then you could play with the idea.

 

LedRush mentioned something here...

Second, even most of the songs I don't like still have value to me. I'd not be happy to even see the 3 songs I reference above not on the album.

...which has to do with why I haven't voted on my own poll yet: I am having trouble choosing the two songs to remove because there are elements of three that I like and I'm trying to decide which has the least redeeming qualities (in my opinion/for my taste), in that regard.

 

It's just fun and games folks. This doesn't change reality.

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Look at it this way:

Imagine we are pre-compact disc and the band are releasing a single vinyl for Hold Your Fire that will follow the model of every album which preceded it, which is less than 22 minutes per side.

 

So in order to compile a selection of songs for this album, you have no other choice but to remove two songs to fit the album. You could remove one from each side and leave the running order as is, or you could remove two from one side and move one of the tracks to the other side.

 

You might think this is a stupid game. Fine. But if you are like me and adore about 80 percent of the record, then you could play with the idea.

 

LedRush mentioned something here...

Second, even most of the songs I don't like still have value to me. I'd not be happy to even see the 3 songs I reference above not on the album.

...which has to do with why I haven't voted on my own poll yet: I am having trouble choosing the two songs to remove because there are elements of three that I like and I'm trying to decide which has the least redeeming qualities (in my opinion/for my taste), in that regard.

 

It's just fun and games folks. This doesn't change reality.

 

Remove Lock and Key and Highwater, and move Prime Mover behind Mission, which now opens side 2.

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All right, I'll change up the running order while I'm doing my editing.

 

Side 1

Force Ten

Open Secrets

Tai Shan

Lock and Key

 

Side 2

Time Stand Still

High Water

Second Nature

Mission

 

It's way too soft and loungy, but it's like that even when the junk I cut is included. It's a Hold Your Fire I like a little more on the whole, and I wouldn't care if no one else would bother to listen past track two.

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Remove Lock and Key and Highwater, and move Prime Mover behind Mission, which now opens side 2.

 

Now we're talking! And I do think that is an improvement of sorts. Actually, I'm stuck between Lock and Key and another song and have somehow convinced myself that without one of them, the other 'll sound grand.

 

I'm gonna keep High Water, though. It just has this effect on me. :blush:

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