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Would RUSH Still Be One Of Your Favourite Bands If...


diatribein
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Would RUSH Still Be One Of Your Favourite Bands If...  

51 members have voted

  1. 1. Permanent Waves was their debut album

    • Yes
      48
    • No
      3
  2. 2. Signals was their debut album

    • Yes
      39
    • No
      12
  3. 3. Presto was their debut album

    • Yes
      21
    • No
      30


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My answer is yes to all three, but I am less secure about the last choice. They would still be a favourite, but maybe not as highly regarded if Presto was their debut album.

 

 

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Edited by diatribein
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As far as the first two questions yes to one of my favorites but they wouldn't be my favorite as they have been for over 40 years now. The last question is an easy one because I would highly doubt I would even know who they are or have listened to them at all...
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Rush is one of my favorite bands ... But had they not had that run from The Debut thru Hemispheres, they would not be ..

 

That doesn't mean that I don't enjoy the post 70s stuff, but "favorite" is very different than "enjoyable"

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I said yes to PW, but no to the rest. But there's not really any way to tell what would've grabbed me or not with those later two albums. If Subdivisions was their breakout tune, then I'd probably consider them a one hit wonder and leave it at that. I would've like the song but not necessarily gotten into the band. I don't dislike Signals, I don't dislike Presto. Now if you'd substituted Grace Under Pressure for Signals or Presto, I would probably become a fan from that point on. But of the choices you gave us, there is virtually nothing on PW that I dislike, or disliked at the time I first heard it (summer 1980). The Spirit of Radio drew my sister and I in, listening to the whole of PW made us love it, looking up their back catalog made us fans.
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So would these albums be released in their perspective years or in '74?

 

For perspective years I would say the only one I would say yes to would be PW.

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The only one I would say a cautious yes to would be PeW...

 

It would greatly decrease the length of their golden run which for me ended with HYF, so perhaps they would just be another band I liked , but not favourite.

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So would these albums be released in their perspective years or in '74?

 

For perspective years I would say the only one I would say yes to would be PW.

 

They would be in the year they came out, so it would mean that the band had remained undiscovered up until the year that the album in question came out on.

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I said yes to PW, but no to the rest. But there's not really any way to tell what would've grabbed me or not with those later two albums. If Subdivisions was their breakout tune, then I'd probably consider them a one hit wonder and leave it at that. I would've like the song but not necessarily gotten into the band. I don't dislike Signals, I don't dislike Presto. Now if you'd substituted Grace Under Pressure for Signals or Presto, I would probably become a fan from that point on. But of the choices you gave us, there is virtually nothing on PW that I dislike, or disliked at the time I first heard it (summer 1980). The Spirit of Radio drew my sister and I in, listening to the whole of PW made us love it, looking up their back catalog made us fans.

 

I thought about doing Grace Under Pressure for the second choice because it would be more evenly distributed (two albums between each choice), but ultimately I felt like the style shift was a little more pronounced between Moving Pictures and Signals than Signals and Grace Under Pressure. Also, the fact that both Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures are so highly regarded on the board influenced my choice. I am basically asking what is the difference in drop-off between those who need the 70s material to fuel their fandom versus the ones who could still love the band as long as they had those two iconic albums in their catalogue. If I add Signals to that cohort, I could be bringing in a whole different group of fans and lose the ability to pinpoint how important Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures are to some fans.

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So would these albums be released in their perspective years or in '74?

 

For perspective years I would say the only one I would say yes to would be PW.

 

They would be in the year they came out, so it would mean that the band had remained undiscovered up until the year that the album in question came out on.

 

Then definitely only Permanent Waves. They were unique and unusual back then. The more recent stuff is more mainstream.

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You know...I see a lot here vying for BEST FAN EVER by voting for all three. But that's not exactly what the OP is asking. You don't know that they'd still be your favorite, or even a favorite even if not for their 70s releases. While I can believe that a very minute percentage of fans upon listening to Signals would declare Rush their favorite band, Presto is even harder to believe and a much smaller percentage than even that. Without the foundation of what came before and with those particular albums released in their perspective years I find it highly unlikely. Oh sure, you can say they'd still be a favorite. But really, this is one of those 'you'll never know' questions. Edited by Alien Girl
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No to all three. While Pew and MP are very strong albums, they're not strong enough to erase the sins of the subsequent albums to make the band my fave. Edited by JARG
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Yes,Yes, No. PermWaves, MP, and Signals were my first Rush albums (back when MP and Signals were brand new).

 

If Presto was their debut, I would still dig them a lot, but I don't think they'd be one of my most-loved, and most-listened to bands. It would be more for isolated tracks than full albums.

Edited by Mystic Slipperman
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You know...I see a lot here vying for BEST FAN EVER by voting for all three. But that's not exactly what the OP is asking. You don't know that they'd still be your favorite, or even a favorite even if not for their 70s releases. While I can believe that a very minute percentage of fans upon listening to Signals would declare Rush their favorite band, Presto is even harder to believe and a much smaller percentage than even that. Without the foundation of what came before and with those particular albums released in their perspective years I find it highly unlikely. Oh sure, you can say they'd still be a favorite. But really, this is one of those 'you'll never know' questions.

 

Thanks for writing this! I agree with everything you said.

 

I expected there to be a few more NO votes for the first question too and I also think some people are underestimating how having Presto be the first album would effect their fandom. The newcomers in Rock releasing their first album in 1989 that had some level of success right away were bands like Warrant, Skid Row, and Extreme. Bands like Nirvana, Green Day, and The Offspring also debuted in 1989, but they were not well known until the 90s and signed to indie labels. How Presto would fit into this mix as a debut album is unknown, but I would expect that it would be received more closely to the former three than the latter. We all know that those bands were swept away 4 years later by the alternative revolution. Me personally, I love everything released by Warrant (with Jani Lane) and Extreme / Nuno Bettencourt even after the 1993 cull, but most people moved on. I used that fact to try to extrapolate whether or not Presto would lead me to continue to be a fan of the band until the end of their career. The problem with that sort of thinking is that RUSH only got to continue to have major label releases after 1993 because they had been around for much longer and had a fan base that gutted it through changes in the music industry. Either way, I still would have been a fan. Presto, Roll The Bones, Counterparts, and Test For Echo were all good enough for me to solidify a bond with the band that I would not break.

 

The entire poll for me is very different than for most of the people responding though, because I see the 70s albums more as dead weight than music that drives my fandom. I came along in 1984 with Grace Under Pressure and until 1988 only had Grace Under Pressure, Power Windows, and Hold Your Fire in my collection. Those were the albums that made me a fan. It wasn't until 1988 that I started to buy some of the older albums. I think one of the first things I bought was Archives (collection of first 3 albums) and I NEVER listened to it again after one or two plays of each album. To be honest, I hated them. It just wasn't the kind of music I was into and I didn't really see much of what I loved about Grace Under Pressure, Power Windows, and Hold Your Fire in any of those albums. I don't think it was until after I bought Chronicles that I started to listen to the pre-1984 songs and started to like songs like Fly By Night and Lakeside Park. It was then, after Presto had been release, after Chronicles came out that I started looking for more of the older albums. I loved the songs from Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures on Chronicles and I ended up loving those albums too, but I never got as deeply into the 70s material. It just wasn't the RUSH I knew and loved. I love select tracks here and there (Circumstances, Cinderella Man, Something For Nothing), but none of it ever meant as much to me as those mid to late 80s albums and even the music they made in the 90s and 00s. I know my expreience is very different from the majority here, so I would expect a lot more NOs in the votes.

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