thizzellewashington

Just Principle of Moments I have time for. Plant's 80s and 90s solo stuff is hit or miss for me but his 21st century work has largely been quite good. I particularly love his album Mighty Rearranger from 2005 and his most recent album, Carry Fire.

Sounds of the Universe is good but if I'm going post-peak Depeche Mode, I'm going Playing the Angel all day.

The album Cheap Trick put out earlier this year is excellent.

Not all lyrics are autobiographical or written from one's own perspective...

I really don't think the whole thing is much deeper than "The concept of individualism resonated with the guys in the band because they didn't like the record company telling them what kind of music to make, and they were too young and naive to think about the other things publicly co-signing Ayn Rand might make people assume about them." If there's a mistake they made, it was thanking her by name in the liner notes of 2112. That lasts forever, and putting it in print like that makes it a lot easier for critics who got the album and maybe listened to it once or twice before writing a review to latch onto that as a reason to dismiss a record they didn't like in the first place.

Very different times we're in now than the mid-70s. A band publicly citing Ayn Rand as an inspiration probably wouldn't go over well today but you can't judge stuff written 40+ years ago by the standards of today. It also totally makes sense that Neil found inspiration in something kind of childish and simplistic when he was in his early 20s and still learning about the world, and then when he got a little older he was embarrassed by it and wanted to distance himself. We all have stuff we think is brilliant when we're that young but doesn't age well once you gain more life experience. I guarantee you everything you thought was deep and profound when you were in college you don't feel that way about now.

Just bought tickets to see Stewart Copeland doing Police stuff with an orchestra in about 6 months. Excited.

There's also a big contingent of people, a lot of whom are music critics, that gravitate to rock that's more spontaneous and gut-level and "in the spirit" of three chords and rebellion and aren't going to be impressed by complicated time signatures and philosophical lyrics. That isn't a value judgment by me about which type of music is better than the other, I'm into stuff all across the spectrum, but there's a reason critics in the late 70s and early 80s were going to prefer stuff like the Clash or Elvis Costello or early pre-stadium U2 to stuff like Rush. The whole narrative at the time was that punk rock, which is EXTREMELY well-liked critically, happened as a response to the "excesses" of prog, and Rush is arguably the most commercially successful prog band of that era, so of course they're going to get the majority of the hate. Personally, I'd argue that making a 20-minute concept piece in response to your label threatening to drop you if you don't get more commercial is as "punk rock" as it gets, but that's neither here nor there.

Most common (and honestly, understandable) reasons I've come across for people not liking Rush: *Geddy's voice (I've always liked it from the beginning but it's certainly not for everyone) *The Ayn Rand/libertarian thing (Neil pretty strongly distanced himself from that stuff after about 1980 but you can't expect most people who aren't diehard fans to know that if they already had that perception) *The idea that they're incredible technical musicians whose music is sterile/soulless (I don't agree in Rush's case but there are bands I feel that way about so I can understand where someone is coming from if they feel that way) I'm way past the stage in my life where I get mad that someone else doesn't like the same music as me.

Rush is my favorite band of all time but I totally get why someone wouldn't like them.

I don't see how the answer could be anything besides "Stairway." The most iconic "classic rock" band's most iconic song, musically has all the elements, is the most radio-ubiquitous song of the era. It checks every box.

Not a huge BNL fan but I'm certainly curious about what Geddy's involvement is.

Rush.net was officially affiliated in some way IIRC. It was a long time ago. I believe it was a lot of the same people involved as Tri-Net but again, we're talking about 20 years ago so my memory is fuzzy.

Saw Primus a few weeks ago which I felt good about because it was in an outdoor venue. No issues there. The following weekend I had tickets to GNR, which I'd bought a month ahead of time when it seemed like COVID numbers were trending in the right direction, but the show was happening right at the peak of this current surge in cases so I decided to bail. Just didn't feel comfortable about it even though I'm fully vaccinated—they weren't requiring proof at the time and even if they were, there's no way to enforce it at a venue that size. Bummed I couldn't go, especially because I wanted to see Wolf and Mammoth WVH opening, but it was for the best. Have tickets to a few smaller shows (club/theater level) in the coming months that as of now I feel OK about because they're requiring proof of vaccination and the venues are small enough that they'll be able to actually check.

It's playing near me and I want to go but I'm not sure how I feel about sitting in a movie theater during COVID. I'll make a decision week of, probably.

Not a single bad song on any album from 77-85.

Just coming here to say Emotional Rescue is super underrated.

It's good. Worth getting if you don't have it. There are tons of bootlegs from the mid-90s tours that are just as good if you know where to get them, though.

Love these guys.

Just saw this show in Portland tonight. Kicked ass. Obviously Claypool sounds nothing like Geddy vocally but they pretty much nailed it musically. I wasn't expecting the covers to be as faithful as they were—I figured they'd do something different with the arrangements and make them more Primus-like, which I would have been into. But they did a great job with it. Definitely worth seeing.

I'm not super attached to any one lineup of Yes because that band has always been kind of a revolving door but I've been out since Jon Anderson left. I'm actually a huge fan of Drama even though he wasn't on that album but that's a different thing to me because Horn and Downes came in and brought their own sound to it so it was unique and still "in the spirit" of Yes. Kicking Jon out because he couldn't tour and hiring a soundalike from a tribute band is wack to me.

Newsy highlights: *The album from this "Envy of None" project will hopefully be out before the end of the year *Alex is doing a lot better health-wise with his arthritis etc. *He doesn't really have a lot of interest in playing live shows or touring again outside of one-off stuff *He and Geddy are still extremely close and talk every day but don't have any plans to make music together anytime soon *Moving Pictures anniversary box set is happening

Alex was on with Eddie Trunk today and also hinted that a Moving Pictures box set is in the works. He said that he and Geddy don't really get too involved in these reissues beyond saying yes or no to stuff but the label has "big plans" for MP.

The Popoff books have lots of great info and look nice so they're worth buying, but I wish they'd been presented as straight oral histories because he's an awful writer. Wandering the Face of the Earth, on the other hand, is the single best Rush book ever published.

Very cool.