Rick N. Backer

The "real" fans can tell you how Half the World was their favorite live song. The rest of the population who saw them after 1981 can tell you how the crowd erupted when that opening synth chord was played.

Less than half a mile from where I lived.

It's a great song. The lyrics are shockingly dumb, but the melody is exceptional.

You can't pick 2 80s albums off the bat. But you got the rest of them right.

It's in Bob Ryan's book. He was embarrassed that he owned 1 pair of pants.

I've always loved Witch Hunt. I remember when MP came out I spent a year wondering how I missed Fear parts 1 and 2, since I owned all of their albums to date. It wasn't until Signals came out that I figured it out. Sadly, I was also too stupid to understand that Neil's reference to, "the haunted child," opening meant the bells. I kept turning up my record player trying to hear ghostly children.

It's close between PeW-MP-Signals, so you won't get much argument from me. I just think that MP's track's are a hair better.

That the actual villains from Witch Hunt don't realize they are.

Rush - Moving Pictures. Sorry folks, this is their apex.

You don't need a coaster in a car.

The Beatles - Love

I think this raises a really good point. I turned 13 in 1980. A lot of my favorite bands either broke around that time or released their signature album around that time. Even in the case of a band like the Stones, whose heyday was really about 10 years earlier, I still personally love albums like Emotional Rescue and Tattoo You. I doubt that's a coincidence. Does it matter that Back in Black came out in 1980? Probably. I love High Voltage, but I discovered it because of Back in Black. I discovered 2112 after falling in love with PeW. Would I have discovered MP if the first album I heard was T4E? Probably, but my view of the former would have been colored, negatively, by my view of the latter, instead of my love of the former making me more willing to give the latter a chance. There's probably a good reason why, if a band didn't break until after 1992 (when I turned 25), or if none of its members were famous before then, I don't know a ton about them. It's sort of the same reason I can tell you who won the World Series in 1990, but not 2 years ago. Life changes as you get older.

Hall has never really been the player people hoped he'd be, at least he wasn't here. Maybe playing with Bedard will rejuvenate him. Foligno has been one of those unsung solid contributors I'll miss.

I agree with a lot of this. But returning to JARG's question, for me Signals was the last great Rush album before CA. I had only been a fan since PeW, and I loved Signals when it first came out. Subdivisions, Chemistry, The Weapon and Losing It had more "in your face," synth, but only Chemistry was a lesser song. By the time HYF came around, it seemed clear Rush was no longer the band I fell in love with. Every new album they released starting with Presto had a lead track that when I heard it I thought, "Maybe they're back." But the albums on the whole had too many songs that, if I didn't like the band already, wouldn't make me want to buy an album. When Far Cry came out, I thought it was the best song I had heard from them in ages, and I like Snakes on the whole. P/G is probably the start of the era when, had I not been fan already, because of the material that came before it, I would not consider myself a fan. If that makes me less of a Rush fan, so be it. Music is entertainment. I personally don't really get the tendency of some to say, "I didn't like the album when I first heard it, but then I made myself listen to it 40 more times, and now I kind of like it." To me that always seems like someone in a bad relationship trying to convince themselves they're happy. If you don't like T4E then put on MP.

Happy Belated Birthday Custom. Hope you spun The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, an album I will forever associate with you because of your posts here.

Off the top of my head, here's a list of 10 essential CDs to keep in your car for any mood: The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper* The Stones - Let it Bleed* Sabbath - Paranoid Van Halen - s/t* AC/DC - Back in Black Aerosmith - Toys in the Attic Def Leppard - Pyromania Nirvana - Nevermind Rush - Moving Pictures Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Ozz *Not my favorite by the band, but the album by them I suppose is more universally beloved than my favorite.

I agree you could replace LZ IV with LZ II, Sticky Fingers with Let it Bleed, and Abbey Road with the white album with respect to my personal preference about those bands' discographies. But as a general proposition I can't disagree with the article that all of the albums, except The Last Waltz, are essential.

Dump The Last Waltz and add Paranoid.

It's an interesting question. If VH's first 4 albums had been 5150, OU812, For Unlawful and Balance, how would they be thought of now?

Hmm. I wonder how feeding an organ through a wall of amps might sound.

Yesterday: Paul McCartney - Memory Almost Full Paul McCartney - Flaming Pie In SOCN recently, the point was made that Rush gets a pass for their late 20th century output because of the longevity of their career. In effect, the argument was made that eventually even great artists have to come down the mountain. Flaming Pie was released 30 years after Sgt. Pepper. Memory Almost Full was released when McCartney, who as a young man wistfully sang "When I'm Sixty-Four," was. They're both great albums.

I too just listened to PIece of Mind and Powerslave. And Beast and Somewhere in Time as well.

I can't improve upon this, so I won't try.

I wish more bands recognized that live albums should sound live, not like studio albums with an audience. I know Sabbath didn't want this coming out, but they should have. I'll take the feedback and lyrical miscues over Kiss' "Alive" or VH's Right Here, Right Now, any day. If I want to hear what a song sounds like in a studio, I can find it easily enough. And I'm pretty sure at least some of this was used a third time (this and Past Masters before) on the Vol. IV deluxe edition.

Great late career effort from them. The songs they played when I saw them last year, Take What You Want and Kick, deserved to make the cut.